These days I hear a lot of talk about the role of culture in change management—whether it’s possible to “lead” organisational change using culture as a vehicle.
In my experience culture influences change, but culture change is not the same as change management.
Most managers and executives are well aware of how important culture is to their companies’ success. But it’s not always factored into change management processes. The least successful change initiatives tend not to consider culture. And more successful initiatives leveraged cultural strengths to support them.
It makes sense. If the culture of an organisation is not closely aligned with the company’s strategic goals, a major change is going to be harder to pull off.
I don’t believe culture change will ever replace formal change management processes. But culture can enable and support change, if it’s leveraged right. Maybe your company has strong informal employee networks or a learning environment that could enhance your formal change process. The point is not that culture is harmful or beneficial to change, because it can be either. The point is to pay attention to it as you plan your change process.
How well do you really understand your company culture? Can it be levered to support formal change management efforts? Or does it contain elements that could cause those efforts to backfire or stall? These questions are well worth asking before you start on any major change project.
In any major change initiative, it is the job of management and the people affected by the transition to figure out how to harness the strong cultural attributes of their company to build momentum and create lasting change. Companies that are able to do so—to take what I call a “culture led” approach to change—substantially increase the speed, success, and sustainability of their transformation initiatives
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