Use Organizational Culture to Manage Change

Is culture your competitive tool?

Are you using culture to engage employees, drive change and excel? Take these steps to make culture your hidden asset.

• First, define your organization’s core principles and values

  

  Conduct an organizational culture assessment to identify principles and values that are core to your culture–the Purpose, distinctive and enduring Philosophy and strategic Priorities of your Core Culture. The process must be an organization-wide experience.

   

   

   

   

• Next, uncover the most critical drivers to increase employee engagement

  Survey the level of employee engagement to obtain your employee engagement index. Also, audit the drivers of engagement to identify the key drivers. These key drivers–your prime opportunities to increase employee engagement–are the universal Priorities of your Core Culture. Your workplace must be a humane workplace that brings out the best in each individual. These universal Priorities are the areas to focus on internally so your employees and the organization will thrive.

 

 

 

 

• Then, manage change by aligning the Five Ps

  Achieve alignment of the Five Ps so employees are practicing the principles and values that drive performance. Align the Practices and Projections with the Purpose, Philosophy and Priorities of the Core Culture. Everyone’s goal is to be better at living the Core Culture each and every day.

Define culture and manage change using the Five Ps

Think about your organization…Does your company culture support success? Does your organization have clearly defined principles and values that are core to the culture? And does everyone know and practice these principles and values?

Also consider…Are your employees engaged? Do you know the engagement drivers that your organization should focus on and pay attention to in order to increase engagement?

Do you know how to use culture to drive change for your company? Do you have a system for integrating new values throughout the entire organization to make the business more competitive?

Now there is a change management strategy that unites everyone in the organization around a set of principles and values that will guide change and drive success. Success for the company and for each employee working for it. This strategy begins by conducting an organizational culture assessment. Using this unique cultural assessment process, you will define the core, distinctive and strategic principles and values of your culture. How you define the Purpose, Philosophy, and strategic Priorities will impact your ability to effectively live the principles. Next, survey for employee engagement. Target your universal Priorities for improving engagement. Then, you can manage change from the inside out. Just integrate the core principles and values in everything you do, using the Five Ps. Ensure that the Practices and Projections reflect the Purpose, Philosophy and Priorities of the core.

Discover how to define your unique core culture and engage each employee to live by the distinctive, strategic, and universal principles and values that will generate success. Sometimes the only change that is needed is to be better at being who you say you are. Other times, more extreme change is needed to thrive.

Whether going through a merger or acquisition, leadership change, rapid growth, unsettling economic times or a drop in employee morale, defining your organizational culture by conducting an organizational culture assessment, increasing employee engagement and managing organizational change are fundamental to business success.

Contact Sheila Margolis–President of Workplace Culture Institute–to guide your organization so that culture becomes the force that drives your business. Workplace Culture Institute is a consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, serving companies globally to conduct cultural assessments and employee engagement surveys.

 

Successful companies know their core culture. And, employees align the Five Ps each and every day.

Watch this video to learn more about the importance of aligning your organization’s core culture with practices and the image you project to the public in order to achieve successful organizational change.

Let Sheila help you use culture to drive change.

Contact Sheila to learn how she can support your company in defining and shaping your organizational culture and in using culture to manage change. Learn about her consulting and coaching services, invite her to speak to your group on organizational culture and employee engagement, and read her books.

1. Contact Sheila to provide the following services:

• Conduct an organizational culture assessment. Cultural assessments help you define the core principles and values of your organization.
• Conduct an employee engagement survey and identify changes to improve employee engagement. Learn what to focus on internally to be more successful.
• Facilitate an Alignment Audit and create an Alignment Plan to drive organizational change.
• Coach you through the cultural assessment, employee engagement and alignment process.

2. Invite Sheila to speak in the areas of core culture, organizational culture change, and employee engagement.

3. Read Sheila’s books:

• Building a Culture of Distinction: Facilitator Guide for Defining Organizational Culture and Managing Change.
• Building a Culture of Distinction: Participant Workbook for Defining Organizational Culture and Managing Change
• Job Seeker Manual: A Step-by-Step Guide for Using CULTURE FIT to Find the Right Workplace for You
• There Is No Place Like Work: Seven Leadership Insights for Creating a Workplace to Call Home

 

Discover how to use culture to drive change in these blog posts.

• Fixing the Uber culture
  According to recode, Jeff Jones, the president of Uber, is leaving. He cites the Uber culture as his reason:
  I joined Uber because of its Mission, and the challenge to build global capabilities that would help the company mature and thrive long-term.

  It is now clear, however, that the beliefs and approach [More...]

• Job seekers and culture fit

  Companies screen for culture fit and job fit
  Companies screen applicants on at least two levels--job fit and culture fit.

  First, they evaluate a candidate’s fitness for the job. To evaluate for job fit, companies consider these questions:

  Does this person have the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for this job?
  What [More...]

• Conduct a culture assessment
  Should you conduct a culture assessment for your organization?
  Is it time to conduct a culture assessment? Before answering this question, think about how  employees in your organization would respond to these questions?

  What is the purpose of our organization?
  Why is the work we do important?
  What makes our company distinctive [More...]

• Culture is a competitive tool
  Culture--your organization's hidden asset

  According to Fortune and its latest research on the 100 Best Companies to Work For, culture is "the secret to business success." This Fortune issue reinforces the importance of workplace culture and the trend that culture is a competitive tool.
  Steps to make culture your competitive tool
  Similarly, based on [More...]

• Organizational culture assessment instrument
  Is there an organizational culture assessment instrument to help identify and define your company's core culture?
  Organizational culture assessments are used to identify the principles and values that are core to the culture of an organization. If you are planning to conduct an assessment, what organizational culture assessment instrument or process [More...]
• Employee engagement index
  Employee engagement index to monitor engagement over the years
  So every year you measure employee engagement. You survey all employees to determine the Level of Engagement—using a handful of questions—and then you concentrate on the Drivers of Engagement—a more extensive list of questions. You may also include items on pre-engagement Threshold Motivators—compensation [More...]
• The value of sustainability and the Five Ps
  Sustainability is a commitment to ethical behavior in three areas of responsibility: economic, social, and environmental. This effort is an environmental and human focus that is profitable for the organization. Sustainable organizations create value and long-term stability while contributing to society at large. The Five Ps model illustrates how the value [More...]
• Using incentives to motivate employees
  Intrinsic motivation and performance
  Extensive research indicates that intrinsic motivation leads to higher performance. In other words, when the task itself is motivating due to being enjoyable and interesting to the employee, then the employee will expend greater intensity, effort, and persistence in doing the work, thereby enhancing performance. Work that [More...]