Organization Culture: A Barrier to Organizational Change Management
What makes one company desirable to work for and another not? With so many of the fortune 500 companies being structure in a similar way, the answer likely isn’t their organization in it of itself. In reality, what’s differs from one organization to another is the corporate culture, which dictates how employees behave and how those actions are perceived and validated. When it comes to business transformation, here’s everything you need to know about how organizational culture can act as a barrier to organizational change management.
Business transformation cannot take place without managing the underlying culture that exists.
Why culture matters
In short, culture is what holds an organization together. It’s the set of beliefs that employees have about where they work, why they work, and who they work with. If your company culture is inherently negative, then employees will feed off of that negativity. It will work against your productivity instead of in favor of it. Thus, your organizational culture must be honed and cultivated in order to maintain it. Business transformation cannot take place without managing the underlying culture that exists.
Why culture can be a barrier to organizational change
When it comes to institutional change, it must take place in a way that involves the culture that is present at your company. Culture can present itself as an obstacle in a variety of ways to business transformation. Here are some reasons to consider if you’re working from an organizational change management framework.
- It’s an ingrained part of your workplace. Culture doesn’t go away overnight, and you can’t pretend that it won’t be a barrier if you’re trying to create organizational change. Your company culture needs to be constantly maintained. If you’re not doing everything you can to maintain it or improve it, then you can’t be surprised when it impacts your results.
- It requires a critical eye. If you’re dealing with poor company culture, you need to look at it analytically in order to evaluate your next steps. Come up a tangible measurement that you can use to demonstrate how you’re meeting your business outcomes and goals as it relates to company culture and organizational change. If you don’t have a way to management, how will you know when you’re successful?
- But sometimes, that critical eye isn’t your eye. If you’re struggling to discover the best way to impact the culture of your workplace positively, it may be time to call in someone with specific expertise. Consultants have fresh eyes and can let you know what you can do as a leader to continue to move towards the business transformation that you’re seeking.
- However, when you’re looking to navigate culture as a barrier, you must be a leader. That doesn’t mean stamping out the culture. In fact, that will likely do you more harm than good. Realize that you are part of the culture that has taken hold and need to be part of revamping it.
- Culture, like anything else in a workplace, has stakeholders. While you have a vital role in establishing the culture, you cannot do it alone. You need everyone on your team to help make a positive culture foundational in order to work towards organizational change. If you don’t have everyone on board, business transformation ultimately won’t happen.
Final thoughts
When evaluating ways to better implement organizational change in your company, remember that culture is always a factor. Priocta can help you involve your employees and measure the intensity of your business’ transformation through shared dashboards, quick collection of user input, and employee reminders. Regardless of where your company culture begins, you can start to improve today!
See also our second SaaS-software, Fasplat. Fasplat is a tool for managers and developers to facilitate workshops and group work. Fasplat contains numerous readymade workshop modules to use to develop an organization.
