Cultural change management : the focus of change
Cultural change is distinctive because the focus of change are fundamental beliefs that are shared by a group of people and which generate related values and these values drive our expressive choices. Therefore the unit of analysis are the established ways of doing things within a team. Thus cultural change work is deeply subjective and highly sensitive and requires on the part of the change manager a highly advanced set of analytical skills, soft skills and conceptual awareness of and familiarity with a very unique range of models and tools.
Our choices of behaviours, attitudes, and decisions, are significantly influenced by the underlying belief and related value system of one's organisation . Your organisation is bound together by an integrated system of beliefs and values that generate your expressive choices. These beliefs and values influence our expressive choices and behaviours and this process generates the cultural expressions (e.g. leadership style, service standards) which stretch across the organisation . For example if a management team assume that investing in leadership training is a strategic requirement, they will value leadership development opportunities and to underscore their value in this they may generate artefacts such as leadership award schemes, leadership development courses and appraisal systems geared towards analysing leadership standards across teams. If however, the management team do not assume that leadership development is a strategic requirement they will not value such learning opportunities and there will be a distinct lack of related cultural artefacts. Thus, change the basic beliefs and you generate a change in related values and then a change in expressive artefacts and behaviours and thus you change culture at work.
Most of the time the essence of culture; beliefs and values, will lie below active conscious thought. However, whenever an attempt is made to change the cultural norms that govern the organisation or if these are somehow breached, you will soon become aware. This is because of the tremor of anxiety that radiates throughout the social system alerting you to a possible change in your cultural system. This function of culture is very useful; to you as a manager as it protects the strategies, behaviours, values, and beliefs that have served you well throughout your history. However sometimes the cultural system need’s reviewed, it may need altered, or in some cases it may need transformed. This transformational goal involves the methodological process through which these change interventions are achieved successfully.
To support change leaders involved in cultural change projects we have developed a modular programme Cultural Change Consultancy and Leadership Certificationwhich can be viewed at www.culturalchange.co.uk under training products. https://bit.ly/3YGI6E1
We all know that cultural change is a very specialised area of change practice, therefore, investing in the right training course is critical to avoiding an enormous amount of unnecessary anxiety and loss of resources. Your time and emotional investment in this course will protect you from excessive change management stress by revealing to you the pitfalls to avoid, and the successful methods you can use to engage all your stakeholders positively with your change agenda.
Most people would agree that this is messy, tough, emotionally demanding change work that is fraught with difficulties. This course provides a toolkit for the trained practitioner that will alleviate many of these difficulties.
