“Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed; the culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.” - Frances Hesselbein
Because Patty and I have been blogging for a few months now, I thought it might be useful to pull all of the categories of change together to explain why we have organized our thoughts in the way we have.According to the Free Management Library, Culture Change is defined as "changing the basic values, norms, beliefs, etc., among members of the organization in order to improve organizational performance."If your goal is to modify not only the people, processes, services, and technology of your company, but to truly transform the culture, then you will need to take a concerted and wHolistic ChangeSM approach:
- Make the case for change
- Define success, so you know what true change will look like
- Avoid pitfalls that cause change efforts to fail
- Gain strong sponsorship
- Create change agents
- Plan the change and the effects on people, processes, services, and technology
- Establish a change that will last through Communities of Practice
- Execute the change through a change management and communication plan
- Set people up for success by making the change operational
- If new skills are required, create training and development materials
- Report progress through status reports and celebrations of success
- Expect and find ways to overcome resistance to change
We hope you find our blog posts useful as you attempt to change your organization. Please keep checking back here as we continue to provide real world examples of changes we have participated in and what we have learned along the way.