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Many organizations face rapid environmental changes that present new opportunities and threats to its existing culture. Successful change-oriented cultures respond to these environmental changes by applying strategies that match the requirements of the changing environment, such as reengineering business processes, developing new partnerships, and creating new products, just to name a few. Before engaging in change, there are two important factors of which every culture leader must be mindful:
UNCERTAINTY THRESHOLD
To be deeply involved in the process of change requires leaders and members of the culture to acquire comfort with transformation, not stability. Transformation is always fraught with uncertainly and often perceived as loss of stability. This uncertainty can be discomforting for leaders, managers, and employees alike, at all levels of the organization. Most leaders are taught, through education and/or their own experience that the goal of leading is to create a stable organizational environment. This concept remains true with one exception, when the organizational culture requires its leadership to lead through change. Change requires leaders to manage their own anxieties regarding the unknown and also the anxieties of their executive staff and employees. To be aware of your own uncertainly threshold and/or how much uncertainty your organization can tolerate will allow you to be better informed of what changes and when changes can be effectively made.
CHANGE AS PROCESS
Change should always be seen as a process, not an event. This concept must be communicated throughout the culture and organization, repeatedly and frequently. This communication is part of creating fertile ground for change. When employees learn that change is a process and not an event, leaders are allowed greater flexibility for decision making and outcomes. Not every step in the change process will be perfectly executed or look its best when it is first initiated. However, making each step part of a larger process increases the organization’s probability for success.
IMPLEMENTING A CHANGE PROCESS
When implementing a change process, people look toward culture leaders for ways to do things differently. Lack of careful planning and design prior to implementation will typically leave people uninspired and lower their uncertainty threshold. The following steps can assist any organization in managing the process of change.
DEVELOP A CAUSE
The leader must articulate a compelling cause (i.e., changing the world or changing human experience in the world) that will guide the change effort and be useful in identifying various strategies to achieve the cause. The cause must be stated in a way that is understandable to a sixth grader (i.e., easy to understand) and recitable (i.e., very memorable). To be committed to a cause, members need to see a promising future that is better than the present they experience and worth the additional effort and hard work created by the process of transformation.
CREATE A CHANGE MANAGEMENT TEAM
Identify individuals from different departments in the organization who will function as a culture-shift team and guide the change process. Ensure that this team has ample authority to make decisions and changes as necessary.
ACTIVELY COMMUNICATE THE CAUSE AND STRATEGIES
The leaders and culture-shift team must use all their communication skills, repeatedly and frequently, to motivate and mobilize all the participants in the change process.
EMPOWERMENT
Employees throughout the organization should be empowered to act on the cause. Empowerment can come in the form of resources, information, and discretion to make decisions that serve the cause. This step may also include removing obstacles which impede empowerment, such a certain rules, policies, and procedures.
IDENTIFY SHORT-TERM ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Leaders must be able to break down the overarching cause into identifiable strategic and tactical steps. Each step must be identified as an achievement to keep people motivated and working towards the vision.
CELEBRATE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Major change takes time to complete. It takes 12-18 months, minimum, to create meaningful, substantive change to an organization’s culture. Celebrating each step in the process of change raises peoples’ confidence, enthusiasm, and pride in a job well done.
Keep cultivating your culture!