Corporate Culture and Change Management

Saifulla Khan
Media Catalyst

Every organization has its own unique culture or value set. Most organizations don't consciously try to create a certain culture. The culture of the organization is typically created unconsciously, based on the values of the top management or the founders of an organization. The importance of corporate culture is growing as the result of several recent developments. Companies are encouraging employees to be more responsible and act and think like owners. In exchange for more flexible work schedules, employees are expected to always be "on-call." With the demise of more traditional communities (e.g. neighborhoods, etc.), companies are filling employees' need to belong to a community. At the same time companies are encouraging teamwork and the formation of teams.

Culture plays a vital role. Leaders must learn to harness the positive aspects of a culture in the change efforts. Culture is much like the water in an aquarium. While it is largely invisible, its chemistry and life-supporting qualities profoundly affect its inhabitants. An organization requiring transformation is like an aquarium polluted by too many algae, and requires restoration. Leaders effecting an organizational transformation must understand the vital role that corporate culture plays in any change efforts. The biggest problem with such a task is that the most powerful individuals stand to lose the most. Often, they will resist the changes necessary to move ahead in order to avoid losing power.

Corporate culture can help in bringing about change in the following ways:

Provide the key to mastering change. - Corporate culture is an ever-evolving process and invariably it is a part of change that takes place in an organization. Corporate culture if implemented properly will help in Mastering change so that whatever the change may be, it can be incorporated into the organization without creating any huge difficulties / neglect from employees.

Build new standards of communication that get better results - Agreement on beliefs and values facilitates communication. If Management wants to connect with all of their staff, they need to combine three styles of effective communication: emotional, factual, and symbolic. These can be built into the corporate culture, thus making it a part of the organization itself.

Create greater customer satisfaction - Customer satisfaction has become the most important aspect of any service industry; corporate culture can help you by preparing you to give the customer what they must have i.e. build a communication that allows your people to succeed and increase the speed and value of organizational learning.

Cooperation between employees - Shared values may enhance goodwill and mutual trust, encouraging cooperation. This will help in any new implementation, as there would be a coordinated and collective effort from all.

Decision-making - Shared beliefs and values lead to more efficient decision making since there are fewer disagreements about which premises should prevail.

Employee Commitment - Strong cultures foster strong identification and feelings through beliefs and values the employee can share with others. This would help the company accommodate change or implement anything new keeping in mind that they have a set of committed employees. Therefore they need not worry about attrition as a result of any change that may be implemented.

Corporate behavior - Culture helps organization members make sense of their behavior by providing justification for it. This would enable a smooth implementation of any change that might be proposed.

In the end we need to keep in mind that corporate culture could be used as a perfectly crafted tool to implement any change. A good corporate culture will by all means help in change and a perfect implementation would fasten and ease the change implementation that is required.

So, while practice may never make perfect when it comes to organizational change, understanding and managing corporate culture can influence the final outcome of your change efforts.

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