Organizational Culture Articles

A Guide to Implementing Change

9/27/2011

Organizational change is difficult; yet, change is imperative to remaining competitive. Studies suggest that change efforts fail for a number of reasons, including:

• Changes are not anchored in corporate culture.
• A compelling business case is not made.
• The organization is not prepared for the change.
• The change vision is unclear; outcomes and measures are not well defined.
• Leaders fail to plan for and accomplish short-term wins.
• Communication is inadequate.
• Executives do not get personally involved in leading the change effort.

While change initiatives are often complex, we offer a few quick ideas to increase the success of your next change effort:

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People are Watching

9/13/2011

Like it or not, as a leader your behavior is under scrutiny. And that scrutiny increases the higher up the hierarchy you go. Employees are watching (and evaluating) your word choice, actions and behaviors. So it is helpful to ask yourself:

• “How inspiring am I?”
• “Am I demonstrating positive or negative energy?”
• “Do my actions match my words?”
• “Am I behaving in a way that is consistent with the organization’s culture and values?”
• “Am I modeling behaviors that I want others to follow?”

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Who cares how many hours you work? Maybe you’re inefficient?

8/9/2011

With all the recent talk surrounding the number of hours the typical American worker is now putting in, I was reminded of a talk I attended that brought together some of the country’s most successful leaders. One of the presenters was Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS, a premier business analytics software company serving 45,000 customers and 92 of top 100 companies on the FORTUNE Global 500® list. Jim has led the privately-held company since it began in 1976. While SAS’s business success is impressive, the culture Jim has created is awe inspiring.

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Current Culture: A Starting Point for Change

4/26/2011

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening.”

–Edgar Schein, professor MIT Sloan School of Management

I often hear leaders talk about the need to change organizational culture. According to Schein, in most organizational change efforts, it is much easier to draw on the strengths of the current culture than to overcome the constraints by changing the culture.

So, how do we better understand current culture?

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Living with Shear Joy

3/24/2011

People who know me well know that I am an animal lover. (Okay, you don’t have to know me very well to know that.) We live in the country and have our own little getaway with horses, barn cats (who think they own the place), and steers. It is our haven…our respite from very busy lives.

And then there is the dog. We have a Border Collie mix named Tripper. Like most dogs, at the mere mention of the word “walk” she exudes shear joy. Anyone who has had a dog knows this. But dog owners know that their dogs exhibit shear joy in almost everything they do.

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