The Culture Connection
1. Understand your culture:
Although intrinsically complex as a concept, culture at its most basic can simply be described as ‘the way things are done around here'. Understanding what the culture is, how it evidences itself and how it can operate with or against a change is key to planning effective change. For BSI the point of understanding culture is to be able to:
- Identify the right approach to take for any given change
- Identify where particular areas might cause problems
- Plan ahead reducing the risk of a change being derailed by something unexpected
Understanding culture is important to BSI because it reduces the operational risk of implementing a change. If culture is not understood then it often provides the big surprises that make a change initiative fail. Culture will determine the level of success achievable with the change.
2. Understand the impact of change:
Understanding culture will help give insight into the impact the change is likely to cause - both in terms of how it will affect the culture and how the culture will support or impede the change. BSI helps clients understand the impact of the approach they take, on the project, the organisation and future change projects they might want to undertake. Different cultures respond differently to different change approaches.
3. Cultural Levers:
BSI believes the most effective ones are leadership, how the change is approached, and how the measurement and reward systems work within the company. In its simplest form cultural mapping is the way to understand what ways of working are used in each part of the business. What gets measured also reflects the priorities of the organisation (in a well thought through measurement system!) or will reflect priorities as interpreted by people.
