Cultural Transformation

Growing Your Desired Culture: Follow-Up and Learning

August 16, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

Last week, we continued our journey through the components necessary for growing your desired culture and focused on Structural Alignment. Today, we continue with Follow-Up and Learning.

The process of cultural change in an organization is iterative. Building feedback loops for learning and growth is one of the most commonly forgotten steps in the journey. These steps will help you learn where to focus your attention and let you know when you need to correct your course:

DAILY FEEDBACK

Feedback is an effective way to visualize and manifest a desired culture. “Effective feedback enables the receiver to walk away understanding exactly what he or she did and what impact it had on them. When the result is this specific and this direct, there is a better chance that the person getting the feedback will be motivated to begin, continue, or stop behaviors that affect performance” (Weitzel, Feedback That Works, 2000).

Related exercises: Effective Feedback from the book Get Connected (p. 173)

REFLECTION AND “LESSONS LEARNED” MEETINGS

We need to invest time to stop, reflect, and learn collectively. This helps us develop shared meaning and an understanding about what works and what does not. The purpose is to enhance your team’s ability to transform and learn.

Related exercises: Team Learning from the book Get Connected (p. 165)

RECOGNITION, CELEBRATION, AND REWARDS (Performance/Behavior Awards)

People like to be caught doing things right. This is contagious, so the more you do this, the more it will

spread. Traditionally, we are not good at celebrating what is right and good around us. By intentionally focusing on the positive, we also grow the behavior and culture we want to see.

Recommended book for ideas: 1501 Ways to Reward Employees by Bob Nelson

QUARTERLY CULTURE REPORT

Shared picture of each team’s current culture journey through data collection and dialogue.

Related exercises: Culture Report from the book Get Connected (p. 185)

ROLLING THREE-MONTH PLAN

This plan includes focus, actions, and dates. It helps the top team and the Culture Manager review, focus, and manage the cultural transformational journey. The eBook, as a whole, with its related activities and questions, is meant to serve as a base for building a rolling three-month plan to manage your culture.

A CULTURE DEVELOPMENT PLAN

This plan includes desired values, actions, responsibilities, and dates. It helps each team review, focus, and manage the cultural transformational journey.

There is an example of a Culture Development Plan in the book Get Connected (p. 54).

FOLLOW-UP CULTURE ASSESSMENT

Define how and when you intend to follow up to see the effect of your efforts and the evolution.

In 2017, Ashley Munday, Former Director of Thrive by SweetRush, and Tor Eneroth, Director of Cultural Transformation at Barrett Values Centre, wrote an eBook as a resource and workbook for leaders to get started on the culture journey in a meaningful and tactical way. To accommodate as many leaders as possible, we have converted the content into a series of articles that can be read piece by piece and will be publishing them on a weekly basis. We invite you to consume the material at your own pace and welcome your feedback and questions along the way. Thrive by SweetRush is now known as Transforming Leaders and Culture (TLC) by SweetRush. Please reach out to begin transforming your organization today!

If you’re reading this series, we know you are a leader who understands and cares about the way your organization’s culture supports its people and its purpose—for that, we thank you! Check out the other articles in this series:

Growing Your Desired Culture: Structural Alignment

August 9, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

Last week, we continued our journey through the components necessary for growing your desired culture and focused on Defining and Growing Your Culture. Today, we continue with Structural Alignment. Aligning strategy, structure, and culture is imperative for success in cultural transformation.

Organization-wide values-awareness programs should be established and maintained.
Reinforcement materials—including videos, pamphlets, and posters—should be provided.
A values-based coaching program and coaching culture should be implemented and cultivated.
The company brand and/or customer promise statement need to be aligned with your desired culture.

You must consistently work on culture with various parts of the organization—including HR, communications, and strategy—in addition to the top leadership team. Collaborating on culture is extremely important and easily missed.

You need to ensure that the structures and systems of your culture and the communications about it are aligned.

Structures, policies, procedures, and incentives reflect the value systems of the current leaders and the institutional legacy of past leaders. They dictate what behaviors are acceptable and encouraged and what behaviors are unacceptable and discouraged.

The following are examples of some of the most important policies, procedures, and programs that should reflect the organization’s espoused values:

Decision-making processes should be values-based because they allow us to break with the past and create a new future based on what is important to us individually and as an organization.

HR processes and structures need to be consciously aligned with the wanted culture. This includes employee selection, evaluation, and development.

Leadership development and management training programs should include training and reflection on values, culture, and wanted behaviors.

Growing Your Desired Culture: Defining and Growing Your Culture

July 30, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

Last week, we continued our journey through the components necessary for growing your desired culture and focused on Roles for Supporting Culture. Today, we continue with Defining and Growing Your Culture.

Defining and Growing Your Culture

Many leaders think culture is created by defining core values and implementing them. It’s so much more than that. The real work is to align the different aspects of your culture. Creating your desired culture should be engaging, tangible, and visible in daily interactions. It requires a systematic approach to make this happen.

SHARED VISION AND MISSION

Everything starts with clear intention. It is critical to involve the whole organization in defining the vision and mission. This will define organizational culture and strategy.

Related exercises: 4 Whys from the book Get Connected (pp. 75–103)

CULTURE MEASUREMENT

Baseline measurements will help you understand where you are and where you want to go. These should be repeated annually or semiannually to track your progress. This includes existing/traditional “output” and “outcome” measurements, along with the more “causal” culture measurements (Barrett, The Values-Driven Organization, Second Edition, 2013, pp. 43–44).

Barrett Values Centre’s Cultural Values Assessment (CVA) is one of the most comprehensive “causal” measurements available.

DEFINE WANTED BEHAVIORS/ACTIONS

The results of the culture measurement should be shared with teams throughout the organization. Groups then discuss the results to reflect on strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. In these workshops, teams define wanted norms and behaviors.

Related exercises and worksheets: From CVA to Action from the book Get Connected (pp. 52–55, 129–145).

HANDLE DYSFUNCTION

Issues in your culture inhibit a team from effectively executing your strategy. Address the dysfunction by creating a clear plan of action, detailing the values and behaviors that you want to establish.

Related exercises and worksheets: From CVA to Action from the book Get Connected (pp. 52–55, 129–145).

ALIGN STRATEGY AND CULTURE

Each of your strategic initiatives should include a connection to culture. How do you want people to do this work? How does it relate to the values, vision, and mission of the organization? How does it relate to your desired culture?

CONTINUOUS DIALOGUE

You need to make sure that you invest time for daily and continuous dialogue about desired behaviors.

True dialogue enables people to internalize the values and concepts and makes it more likely that they will be engaged going forward. It is the departmental manager’s responsibility to make sure time and space are provided for continuous dialogue.

FROM CVA TO ACTION

Growing Your Desired Culture: Roles for Supporting Culture

July 22, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

Last week, we began our journey through the components necessary for growing your desired culture and focused on Leadership Commitment. Today, we continue with Roles for Supporting Culture.

Roles for Supporting Culture

Just as you have leaders responsible for HR, finance, and communication, you also need a leader to address the cultural journey and ensure that it is taking place. Someone must be assigned to the role of Culture Manager—it’s not going to take care of itself. Established departments are often at capacity with other strategic objectives and may have difficulty taking on another dimensional responsibility. It is also important that this role work across all departments and divisions to develop and care for the ongoing transformation of the culture.

Candidates for this role need particular experience and training to execute the culture initiatives effectively. In addition to the Culture Manager, other employees throughout the organization should be trained to support the culture initiatives. This, in a way, is transforming your leadership culture—the way your leaders behave and what they place value on—to emphasize the importance of the organizational culture.

CULTURE MANAGER

The primary role of the Culture Manager is to be the “guardian” of the culture. Neither the designer of the culture nor its primary promoter, this person keeps track of what is happening in the culture. The Culture Manager also develops organization-wide programs and specific interventions that enable the culture to develop in line with the changing needs of the organization, employees, and external stakeholders.

This role must be internal, with a clear and direct connection to the CEO and top management.

CULTURE AMBASSADOR

Culture doesn’t just happen at the top. Transformation must occur throughout the organization. Culture Ambassadors are managers and employees who are trained to promote culture initiatives. They represent the organizational culture, provide valuable perspective about whether the culture is being lived among their teams, and facilitate frequent dialogue with employees about the values and behaviors that are necessary to support shifts in the organization’s strategy. Having one cultural ambassador for approximately every 50–75 employees should provide a critical mass of people for cultural transformation.

Growing Your Desired Culture: Leadership Commitment

July 19, 2021April 25, 2024 by Ashley Munday

It takes intention, planning, time, attention, and adjustments based on conditions. There is no prescriptive linear way to do this; however, we’ve identified five areas for growing your desired culture:

Each of these areas takes attention and planning, so it’s important to select just a few to focus on at a time. To begin your journey into organizational culture, this and my next four articles will go deeper into each area, but we encourage you to highlight three to five vital activities that are relevant to your organization in the next three months. Revisit the list every three months to review your accomplishments and identify the next vital activities to focus on.

Leadership Commitment

Everyone knows that leadership is essential to transform a culture, but often the roles and responsibilities are not entirely clear. Here are some tips to create a transformational leadership commitment at all levels of the organization.

ROLE OF CEO

It is critical for the CEO to be a transformational leader in guiding the organizational culture. Transformational leaders who are committed to culture talk passionately about it every day. They have personal and clear stories about why they are working with organizational culture. They are consistent and persistent in living the values and building the culture. They have low tolerance for people who are not working to better the culture. They walk their talk!

BOARD COMMITMENT

You will need buy-in and support from the most senior reporting team or structure for organization-wide success. This is often a corporate board. Organizational priorities are typically established from the top, and organizational culture must be included, especially since it is so critical and needs attention over a long period of time.

COMPELLING SHARED REASON

The top team should develop a compelling shared reason for working with organizational culture. This group should have a clear picture of where they are and where they want to go. They should understand the current culture and have a shared vision of the desired culture.

SELF-AWARENESS

All members of the top team should develop self awareness and know their values, purpose, personality, behaviors, and impact on the people around them. Each leader should also understand how they align with the desired organizational values and culture.

WALKING YOUR TALK

All members of the top team should develop ongoing awareness of and feedback on their behaviors, communications, and the perceptions of others.

INVOLVEMENT AND COMMITMENT

Develop a strategy and process to share your organizational culture and involve all your managers. The strategy should include programs for managers to increase their own personal awareness and expectations about their behaviors.

Key Learnings in Culture Transformation

July 12, 2021April 25, 2024 by Ashley Munday

After decades of experience organizing and leading cultural transformation in organizations with more than 1,000 employees, we have identified several key factors for success.

To begin, we suggest that you and your management team reflect on these learnings together. Discuss what you do well and what you may need to consider doing differently going forward.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast” is a remark made by Peter Drucker and popularized by the president of Ford Motor Company. The point is this: if you don’t have a strong culture, you won’t be able to effectively execute your strategy in a sustainable way. At the same time, if you don’t have the focus and direction of a strategy, your culture won’t survive.

Your current culture—“the way things are done around here”—is the enabler, the power center that provides the energy to align people to strive for a shared objective. This culture should be the expression of your mission, vision, and values.

There’s not one “right” model of corporate culture.

Many of us are looking for the best, most effective, or most successful culture. There isn’t a model for what a corporate culture should be. In a time when companies are doing a great deal of benchmarking and many thought leaders are sharing insights, you must develop the right culture for your organization. Corporations are living systems.

Keep in mind that culture is always changing in response to internal and external influences. Culture transformation in organizations must take these influences into account.

What you measure, you can manage.

Even though there’s no prescription for a perfect culture, you will need to measure your unique culture over time. It will be critical to track the impact of your initiatives and adjust your course.

Organizations don’t change; people do.

You cannot expect your culture to change unless you are willing to transform yourself as a leader. This requires leadership development with an intimate understanding of who you are, how you behave, what is important to you, and, most importantly, what you need to find fulfillment in your life. When you are transparent about who you are, what you truly want, and what you find unacceptable, you will be seen as a person with integrity and will develop trust among your teams.

When the top team leaders slow down to listen to the people in the organization and act upon those employees’ needs, transformation will begin. Many leaders are often too busy to listen to their own personal needs. They can also miss what is going on around them. Leaders at all levels need to continuously slow down and stay open to their needs and that of their employees.

It is important that leaders see themselves as a vital part of the whole and shift focus from self-interest to common good.

Start at the top and the bottom.

It is often said that culture change must start at the top, with leadership. This is true, but not the whole truth. You also need to create programs and opportunities to involve employees in developing your culture. People naturally want to work for organizations that value their people and their culture. You can start in small groups within the organization to demonstrate the impact of culture change on team performance. For organization-wide change, however, you’ll need to empower leaders at all levels to live the desired culture.

Dialogue is key.

Culture is not like a machine that you construct and manage. It is more like a living plant that you must nurture. To cultivate this “living entity,” it is crucial to engage and involve people because they are the expression of your culture. The only way to achieve this is through dialogue or, even more precisely, through co-creative dialogue.

Just by inviting dialogue, you are starting your culture transformation. Through reflection and conversation, people develop a collective awareness of what’s functional and dysfunctional and begin to define the way forward toward the desired culture.

Transformation takes time.

As Stephen Covey is attributed as saying, “With people, slow is fast and fast is slow.”

We live in a world where speed is revered. When it comes to culture, however, speed is not a success factor! This process involves human beings. Doing it too fast is like trying to jump from one side of the change curve to the other. It just does not work. If you try to push and go too quickly, your employees will be reluctant to act the next time you face change. So, instead of moving too fast, try investing time and being persistent and consistent.

Cultural Change In Organizations Example: Unilever Brazil

May 27, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

In the following cultural change in organizations example, you will learn more about the concept of the culture change journey. It’s important to recognize that every organization whose leadership chooses to embark on such a journey has different intentions and approaches toward cultural transformation. There is not just one way but many ways to successfully work with your culture.

Unilever Brazil had an incredible legacy built over 80 years; however, in 2004–05, after decades of strong growth, revenues slowed and the business needed renewal.

In early 2008, Kees Kruythoff, the newly appointed chairman, along with the Unilever Brazil board, launched a transformational effort to reignite growth.

They recognized a need not only to address strategic challenges and manage operations but also to address the organizational culture. They had five big thoughts:

THE PROCESS

Unilever Brazil developed a shared understanding among senior leadership that the concept of a linear process can be outdated and ineffective. Truly dynamic work with culture change is very much in the moment and allows for human dynamics.

The company conducted a Cultural Values Assessment every six months for the duration of the culture change journey.

Disciplined attention was maintained for 36 months. The company emphasized that leaders create culture, and it encouraged board members to reflect on their personal values and the culture they desired to create at Unilever Brazil. The board led the executive team through the same process. Then the executive team led all 250 managers through the process as well.

The company established rituals and meaning, (i.e., regular, consistent practices and time for reflection on key espoused values).

Needs were continually reframed (e.g., when there was an overemphasis on safety, company leaders taught the need for risk taking and vulnerability).

THE OUTCOME

Revenue grew by 3% in 2008, 7% in 2009, and into the double digits by the second quarter of 2010. Revenue growth was also driven by increases in market share, not price.

Entropy, the degree of unproductive focus, fell from 37% to 19% and then to 10% in 2010. Entropy in the top team fell from 31% to 8%.

Instead of a culture characterized by caution, short-term focus, internal competition, and consensus, employees now experience a business with long-term perspective, shared vision, teamwork, and a strong orientation toward customer satisfaction and the development of leaders.

Organizational Culture Transformation—A Journey, Not a Destination

May 19, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

Imagine a workplace culture where excitement fills the air, where everything is done to enhance the customer experience, where innovation thrives and teams easily adapt to unforeseen circumstances, where your senior team works toward a shared vision of success, and where people genuinely care for one another, feel recognized, and receive support within the organization.

Cultures like these are not created overnight. They aren’t formed by policy, procedure, and measuring key performance indicators (KPIs). High-performance business cultures have values alignment, mission alignment, and low levels of fear. These are cultures where employees can bring their beliefs and values to work and where there’s a shared belief, throughout the organization, that they have a high-performing culture. So how do you create a high-performance culture?

Our intention for this series of articles is to introduce the concept of cultural transformation in larger organizations, those with more than 1,000 employees. We’ve seen organizations transform their cultures and ignite success time and time again. This article series includes three brief culture change case studies, an overview of the concepts and key learnings about transforming culture, and exercises to help you get started.

Our hope is that this paper will give you the confidence and the tools to begin one of the most important and catalyzing journeys in your organization’s history.

Why Transformation?

While culture change involves engineering a process and managing the moving parts, transformation takes place on the inside. Cultural transformation involves human beings and all the feelings, beliefs, and values that motivate them.

It’s about working with people’s motivations to create something bigger and better than you could have imagined alone. It takes time and needs to be cultivated, like a plant or any living thing. While change is a process from “this” to “that,” transformation unleashes the best of what can be. Transformation frees human potential and accesses our collective wisdom.

Culture Is A Journey, Not A Destination

Throughout this series, we refer to the culture change journey. Leaders on a transformational path need to respond to market conditions as well as to the needs of their internal teams. You will create visions and then reshape them. Culture is not a place you arrive at but a way of being that you will develop and evolve over time.

Culture Change in Organizations Begins Within
Organizational Culture Transformation—A Journey, Not a Destination
Culture Change Case Study: Volvo IT
Changing Corporate Culture Case Study: Old Mutual Group
Cultural Change In Organizations Example: Unilever Brazil
Key Learnings in Culture Transformation
Growing Your Desired Culture: Leadership Commitment
Growing Your Desired Culture: Roles for Supporting Culture
Growing Your Desired Culture: Defining and Growing Your Culture
Growing Your Desired Culture: Structural Alignment
Growing Your Desired Culture: Follow-Up and Learning

Culture Change in Organizations Begins Within

May 18, 2021April 24, 2024 by Ashley Munday

I have traveled around the globe and have eaten a simple rice dish while sitting on the dirt floor of the home of an Indian brickmaker, a woman who lived in abject poverty and had many reasons to be unhappy but was not. Ironically, some of the most miserable people I have met are managers and knowledge workers in North America, people who seemingly have many reasons to be happy. This fact is part of what makes culture change in organizations so fascinating and important.

Aon Hewitt defines employee engagement as “the level of an employee’s psychological investment in their organization.” In its 2017 Trends in Global Employee Engagement report, the company noted that North American engagement rates have dropped to 64% and that only 59% of employees are committed to stay with their organizations. Have you simply accepted attrition or “churn” as your new normal?

We have lackluster engagement amid rapidly changing market conditions that require companies to innovate and adapt quickly. We live in critical times of change, with economic, geopolitical, and environmental factors influencing business decisions each day. Despite the need for rapid change, 70% of change management initiatives fail. Is it any wonder given the engagement levels? It seems we are doing a poor job engaging the hearts and minds of employees. When was the last time you experienced a top-down mandate or one-way communications inspiring change and action?

Culture is often believed to be a magic ether that permeates the right organizations or prescriptive rules that dictate an ideal model. Leaders are left to their own devices to work with culture. Top teams often create a list of values without understanding how to integrate them in a meaningful way, or they develop ad hoc promotional materials, trainings, or initiatives that don’t create cohesive change. So how can corporate culture be changed?

Questions about meaning, motivation, and culture have defined my life’s work. Corporations are some of the most powerful systems on the planet, and I have witnessed and facilitated true transformation among teams and across large organizations in my previous role at Barrett Values Centre. Nedbank in South Africa, for one, turned its organization around completely, going from near bankruptcy to thriving revenues, high engagement, and extraordinary cultural health measures. I continued this work as an independent consultant to national and global organizations until I had my own personal transformation when my son was born and I took time off to be with him.

What excites me about our work at Thrive by SweetRush is that this company has always put “engaging hearts and minds” front and center. The first time I saw the recruitment video we produced for Cisco engineers, I wanted to apply to be one! Paired with deeper culture work and a true understanding of how change can be successful, SweetRush can now impact employee performance in ways that our clients have not seen before, and this, to me, is so exciting. We have the ability to affect culture change in organizations!

In 2017, Tor Eneroth, my former colleague at Barrett, and I wrote an eBook as a resource and workbook for leaders to get started on the culture journey in a meaningful and tactical way. We realized it can be difficult for executives to find the time to consume an entire book at once, so we converted it into a series of articles that can be read on a weekly basis. It is directed to leaders in larger organizations, but the lessons are applicable to anyone who manages a team.

Work with culture change can be done at an executive level as well as within a small group. Aligning culture with strategy is a powerful enabler for any team.

My hope is that you will use this series of articles to identify your next steps in fostering a vibrant, high-performing work culture. Please reach out if you have any questions or if I can be a resource to you as you embark on this important journey.

Cultural capital is a fundamental driver of financial performance. Building it is good for the bottom line and for humankind.

3 Elements of a Powerful Vision for Organizational Change

May 7, 2018June 28, 2023 by Ashley Munday

We’ve all heard the statistic that 70 percent of change management initiatives fail. Often it’s because team members aren’t motivated by the vision for organizational change. When writing our change story, it’s easy for us to assume that others see the importance and share the urgency. However, the change story is the critical first step. Here are three elements of a powerful vision for change:

Create a Sense of Urgency – As Kotter shares, “Your top leaders must describe an opportunity that will appeal to individuals’ heads and hearts and use this statement to raise a large, urgent army of volunteers.”Your change story must address a real business need. It should describe what’s
possible as a result of the change and the consequences if it should fail. It should
connect with top-level strategic priorities. You will need the support of a senior-level
sponsor to convey the urgency.
Define Clear Expectations – Let team members know what will be expected of them and what training and knowledge will be required to effect the change. Engage stakeholders to understand what this organizational change will mean to them. You will need a master vision for change, and various iterations based on the roles within your organization. The researched-based Prosci ADKAR model identifies “knowledge about how change” as one of key steps in a change management process. “Knowledge is the goal/outcome of training and coaching.” If people clearly know what’s expected, they are able to rise to the expectations.
Enlist Your Champions – Champions are folks who see your vision and are fully on board. They understand the vision’s value and are excited to see it come to fruition. When champions come from up, down, and across the organization, they exponentially increase engagement around your vision. From the Chief Learning Officer article “A Simple Guide to Effective Change Management,” champions must have the following three qualities:
- They must exceed performance expectations.
- They must have an aptitude and a desire for training.
- They must be change adopters. The earlier change adopters enter the change curve, the more likely they’ll be out of the change curve by the time they need to start training people.

When carefully crafted with all stakeholders in mind, your organizational change story can be one of the most powerful motivators for transformation. It brings everyone on the same page, and provides consistent messaging for all involved. Going slowly to develop a relevant change story enables a faster process for change.

Interested in crafting your own change story? Visit the TLC team page to learn how we can help.