5 Steps for Effectively Leading a Culture Change in Your Business

Changes are good. With time, companies and organizations welcome new ideas to help the organization grow. In this pursuit, it is often recommended that an organization undergo a cultural transformation for better employee and customer satisfaction.

Cultural Transformation may appear like a heady term with two words, but there is much more to it. In a discussion of Grateful Brain – Neuroscience of giving thanks, at Psychology Today, “a profound brain benefits society, the workplace, or families.”

Hence companies are inclined to go through cultural transformation for its various benefits. Before we proceed to the heavy discussion, let’s get a touch-up on cultural transformation and why the company chooses to go through it.

What is Cultural Transformation?

It is the process of developing and evolving a company culture based on the values and ethos outlined by the organization. It involves a deep introspective dive into what the company believes in, the core values, and how employees perceive it.

You can outline what policies, behaviors, processes, and commitments benefit the company and its employees. In a larger scope, these values and ethos benefit both the company and its employees. And in the longer run, this help distinguishes the company from others in terms of what defines the organization and its working environment.

A successful cultural transformation will bring the employees in the loop regarding delivering the services and products to potential customers. The process of selection to interaction to the receiving of services should reflect the company’s value.

International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) describes it as the ‘adaptation of certain behaviors within the scope of organization’s values, bringing new business strategy or direction.’

Understand the Current Culture and Challenges of Transformation

As you begin the transformation process, you must understand the old processes. It will help you realize the challenges and how employees see the cultural problems and old systems.

Also, in the transformation, the organization has to keep the element of empathy for how it impacts the core strength of the company — the employees.

In a wrong move, transformations are often implemented in the organization without bringing the employees feedback. The executives and CEOs have different opinions on challenges the company would undergo than the opinion of an employee. It is important to consider the opinion of both segments of the organization.

Here are some great ways to discuss the challenges of transformation:

Talking to employees
Conducting focus groups
Have meetings with stakeholders and executives of the organization.

The focus point of these sessions should be how the cultural transformation benefits the company.

Involve the Top-tier

When an organization goes through a cultural transformation, it must succeed. If the CEO and executives aren’t on board with the process, it may not be achieved as quickly or successfully.

They are the people who can take the lead and ask appropriate questions, such as:

What does it take for an organization to be the first choice to work?
What elements are crucial for cultural transformation in an organization?
What practices aren’t fitting in the cultural transformation?

An organization must identify and work towards the change while incorporating feedback.

Build a Strategy

After getting feedback from all segments of an organization, the change makers clearly understand what markers they need to work on. With that information, they can devise a plan they begin with subtle changes.

Remember, you don’t need to overwhelm the people around you. It is best to make changes in their separate divisions. It must begin with leadership while bringing them on board with transformation and the processes.

Identifying what aspects must be tackled first and outlining the processes for everyone to see makes it easy in the transformation process. Everyone is informed and becomes a part of knowledge when they become part of the change. Being mentally prepared helps a lot.

When the staff is aware of the processes, and when each change will be implemented, it makes the transformation not a big deal. Meanwhile, an organization can educate and provide tools to encourage employee change.

Similarly, management needs to be empathic toward the employees to encourage change. They also need to be equipped with the tools that help them encourage cultural transformation among all tiers.

As the organization goes through major changes, communication and engagement would benefit in the long run.

Track the Change

While the organization is going through this major time, staying in touch with the process is important. Track the progress and analyze each division of the cultural change.

Here are some processes to administer:

Track and analyze if the members of the team agree with the transformation. For this purpose, managers must stay in touch with the employees and see how they are warming up to the transformation.

Check those set parameters and performance indicators. They are the only reason the company went through the cultural transformation. For this purpose, design a system to measure performance. These would help identify what is hampering the transformation and why the indicators are not coming to the mark.

Work on those milestones – set small expectations and see if they are met as planned. If there was a milestone to facilitate diversity hiring, evaluate if the milestone was met. If not, work towards subtle changes.

Create an environment of freedom where employees are vocal and give feedback about the transformation. You would be surprised how much this feedback would help in designing the next milestones of the transformation.

Don’t Rush the Transformation

It is outlined as the worst practice for an organization to rush the process. Design the changes that need to be implemented on each level. Everyone is part of the process, from the CEO to an intern, and should be aware of what is expected from this cultural transformation.

Track the progress, get feedback, and add changes if needed in the transformation process to make it easy for everyone.

Final Thoughts

Cultural transformation can be a jarring time for employees. It greatly affects the future, but understanding that each segment of the organization is part of the change and must be on board is important.

If the transformation considers everyone’s outlook, it will positively impact employee satisfaction and, as a whole, the organization’s benefit.