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How to Change an Organizational Culture (part 1)

By Arthur F. Carmazzi

This is our general instinct to live and work in groups. And while some groups or relationships help us to give our best, elevating us to our zenith where we find ourselves as satisfied and more productive as well, and vice versa, in some personal relationships but most frequently in corporate society. The one third of our lives is spent in jobs, and our personal lives are also affected by the relationships and environment of our work place, yet if the company culture is unproductive, we become stressed by interaction with collogues and superiors, we emotionally just give up which leads us to feel “stuck”. How many of you feel that others incompetence’s make your job more difficult? How many of you feel that others take you for granted in your work? The fact is that the same people that you’re expressing these things about are probably thinking the same about you. So what is the solution to a more productive, more fulfilling corporate culture?

The common root seems to be in the communication styles of leaders, some leaders may unconsciously be creating “blame cultures” that prey on our instinctive nature to protect ourselves. This type of organizational culture creates animosity, reduce motivation, and create expensive high turnover among staff because of policies and attitudes that are projected by top management. While these projections are usually unconscious they can form an Organizational Culture where people are Fire Fighters, Quick Fixers, and Hiders.

Increasing a company’s productivity can be resolved by what is called Corporate Re-Culturing, a systematic method implementing “Directive Communication” Organizational Change process to create a chain reaction change within an organization. The results will be a culture of fulfilled, innovative, motivated, and dedicated people that will look for creative ways to help the company.  While change is not easy and often resisted, there are 4 primary steps that will transform a blame culture so that people instead of asking, “Who is to Blame?” will ask, “What can we learn?” or “How can I improve?”

• The 4 Steps to Corporate Re-Culturization:

1. Intensification of the Leader’s Insight (Leadership Development):

A. Since few will give accurate feedback to the top man, a leaders perception may be clouded by misinformation about    him/her    self    and his/her sensitivity to the surroundings. Learning the intricacies of Directive Communication in reference with the company’s   business, the leader can gain more insight in to the dynamics of the group, and their actions and reactions to his/her decisions.

B. When the leader becomes conscious of the psychology of his/her group and the triggers that create certain responses, he/she must delve into his/her own mind, and understand how his/her associations and values influence the group and the type of culture that is created.

C. Discovery is accomplished by a facilitator who will strengthen the issues of the management, the subordinates and the leader and translate them into fragments that can be dealt with individually.

2. Re-Identifying the Leaders Position:

A. The current group perceives the leader in a certain light and it becomes very difficult for that perception to change even though the leader changes. Unless certain tactics are employed to Re-Define the leader and his/her character, the process of change becomes so long that it is often given up before it has a chance to take effect.

B. Part of this process will be in a clear redefinition of the rules that strive on basic human needs. That is taking existing rules (or slightly modifying them if necessary) and clearly putting them in to a perspective of how adherence to these rules will satisfy the basic human emotional conditions for more satisfaction from the job.

3. Staff Re-Framing:

A. This requires putting into effect a series of strategies that seamlessly allow the employees to adopt changes through including them in the changing procedure. Directive Communication again plays an essential role in this step as the leader must guide the managers to believe that the execution and ideas are theirs (even if they are not). And the managers must do the same to their subordinates.

B. Since there is often little useful feedback from subordinates to the leader, a facilitator is required to put the change process into effect by extracting the essential awareness and issues surrounding the operations and the requirements of company to reach peak performance.

4. Building Credibility:

A. This is done by showing almost instant results in performance and efficiency, and creating high visibility around the micro scale successes which are integrated to macros.

B. The idea is that everyone shares the credit for results. Motivational strategies would be built into the process to maintain higher energy and job appeal.

 

In the following articles we will have more details on the steps of Corporate Re-Culturing leading to Organizational Culture Change.

Continued in Part II

 

Get More Free tools from Arthur F. Carmazzi, at www.directivecommunication.com and www.carmazzi.net.

Arthur is the Founder of the Directive Communication Organizational Development Methodology and Ranked as one of the Global Top 10 most influential Leadership Gurus by Gurus International. Arthur specializes in psychological approaches to leadership and corporate culture transformation. He is a renowned International Speaker and bestselling author of “The 6 Dimensions of Top Achievers”, “Identity Intelligence” and “Lessons from the Monkey King”, “The Psychology of Selecting the RIGHT Employee“, and “The Colored Brain Communication Field Manual“.

Related articles

• The Importance of Organizational Design and Structure (blogs.hbr.org)
• Managing Cultural Change in an Organization (brighthub.com)
• CEOs Can Embed a Culture of Sustainability Beyond their Departure (greenbiz.com)

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