Culture Change

"We’re good, but, we could be much better”. “This team is in a rut.” “We work hard but not very smart”. “This place is driving me nuts.”

These statements were made by leaders who desperately needed to begin changing their organisations’ cultures. They just didn’t know it.

Questions About Culture Change

What is organisational culture? How can a leader accurately measure it? When should it be adjusted? What steps do you take to actually change culture? How do you know the change will lead to better results? Can the change be sustained?

At Anteri, we have answers to these questions. If your organisation seems to be underperforming, your best people seem unhappy or stressed or your customers are complaining about inadequate service, these are signs that your culture should be assessed. We will first help you understand the nature of organisational culture and then to find out how your own culture is actually operating. We will do this by conducting a survey using a high-profile, rigorously developed and extensively researched instrument for which we are licensed. The survey results are presented in the form of an easily understood, yet uncannily accurate graphic analysis of your organisation’s culture and the dynamics which created it. If these results indicate that the current culture does not fully support optimum performance and effectiveness we will help your leaders envision, design and implement a culture that will.

Envision, Design and Implement the New Culture

Typically this will involve any or all of the following processes:

· Conducting 360 feedback programmes with the senior executives to identify the dynamics which helped to create the culture

· One-to-one coaching with the senior executives to develop their leadership skills

· Working with the executive team as a whole to help them to explore team effectiveness and leadership skills

· Conducting management training workshops at different levels within the organisation

· Teaching coaching skills to leaders and managers to enhance their own performance and enable them to help their staff to achieve optimum performance

· Periodically measuring change in the behaviours of key leaders, their impact on their teams and on the full organisation

Is it Really Possible to Change Organisational Culture?

Because the culture of an organisation is a function of human behaviours and these behaviours are shaped almost exclusively by peoples' :

values
beliefs
feelings and attitudes

undertaking the task of changing a culture is far from simple and this is why.

Culture is usually an emergent property of all of these complex and rather messy facets rather than being the product of a conscious design. If an organisation is to attempt to instil a new culture - this means by definition that it is to be thought-about and in effect, 'designed'. As this is counter to the way culture is usually formed, the process can meet with a fair bit of resistance particularly if people feel unfulfilled or are generally unhappy with the way things are at work. This is understandable because they blame the leadership for their unhappiness and it is leadership itself which is now telling them that they are to start behaving in a new way! Exclamations of the “I'll believe this when I see it. If I see them changing then I might think about it!" variety abound.

Start at the Top and Work Downwards

This is why our approach to culture change of whatever kind is to work with the executive team or senior level leadership at the very beginning of the process. We spend time with them, not only devising the culture change strategy but developing the leaders and embedding the behavioural changes in the executives themselves. It is when the rest of the organisation experiences for itself the change at the senior level and starts to take notice of the effect on those around them that their interest in the process is awakened. In other words, when they see it working and perceive the benefits to themselves they will want to be a part of this initiative. Anything less than this will produce a struggle and it will feel like pushing a river backwards.

This still does not make culture change an easy process. It requires commitment at the highest level not just a statement sounding like "Yes, we'll have some of that. We'll sign it off and now - back to business as usual". Our aim, to enable each leader to become the finest version of a leader that they can be leads them to feel highly motivated and full of a dynamic energy to bring about the culture change they desire.

Click on the link below for a fuller description of what we mean by organisational culture and how it is created.

Organisational Culture

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Anteri Consulting Bristol, UK, South West: Executive Coaching; Leadership Development; Diversity. Anteri Consulting Bristol, UK, South West: Executive Coaching; Leadership Development; Diversity