Culture - Hay Group

Local norms also
act as a barrier to
cultural change,
with the ‘she’ll be
right mate’ attitudes
common in the
workplace.
“
A culture of inertia
In Australia and New Zealand, there have been
many cases where successful companies have
ignored fundamental shifts in the market and
waited too long before re-aligning their culture
to help achieve business results. Whether it’s
traditional media organisations, paper-based
search companies, or retailers not looking towards
the internet, by the time they try to change their
business model or strategy, it is too late, since
a ‘culture of inertia’ locks them in place.
Local norms also act as a barrier to cultural change,
with the ‘she’ll be right mate’ attitudes common in
the workplace. In an increasingly volatile globalised
world, this type of attitude can no longer prevail.
The time to act is now
As leaders in the organisation, CEOs and executives
have the capacity and the responsibility to shift
the culture in their organisations by understanding
their role in shaping the culture to better align with
the needs of the strategy. This can be personally
challenging as it requires executives to look at
their own values, beliefs and behaviours in the
organisation and question whether they are still
relevant and appropriate for the times. This may
involve blowing up their business model and
fundamentally rethinking the organisation’s
value proposition.
It is difficult to tackle culture change head on.
Culture change is a journey which takes time,
and involves being deliberate about where your
organisation is heading. It is about identifying the
different levers – the practices, norms, symbols,
processes and behaviours – influencing culture, and
by changing these levers culture change occurs and
is sustained over time.
Simply sticking to what you are good at and hoping
for the best is not good enough anymore – leaders
need to act to develop and evolve their organisation
culture to ensure that it supports and enables
their staff to change the way they do business and
continue to meet the needs of their customers. That
is the recipe to long-term sustainable performance.
Key steps to achieving culture change
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Understand the strategic requirements of
your organisation: what type of culture is
needed to deliver the short and long-term
results you desire?
Define the types of behaviours that will
be required to help the organisation
be successful.
Prioritise the change levers that will produce
the most impactful culture change.
Focus on systematically implementing
those catalysts for change over time.
Culture change is a journey
which takes time, and involves
being deliberate about where
your organisation is heading.
Watch Nicholas summarise the key points of his article
CASE STUDY:
IBM’s culture change journey
The success and longevity of IBM can be attributed
to the organisation’s ability to change. IBM has
learned over a century that culture isn’t just one
of the tools of management; it is the purpose of
management. The company also understands that
words in corporate value statements, as powerfully
as they may be expressed, are empty platitudes
unless they are acted on rigorously and consistently
in day-to-day business activities.
Tom Watson Jr., the former Chairman and son
of IBM’s founder, once said, “I believe that if an
organisation is to meet the challenges of a changing
world, it must be prepared to change everything
about itself… except those (core) beliefs… as it
moves through corporate life.” At IBM, those
words are taken to heart, and are embodied
in the organisational culture.
In an age of unprecedented change and complexity,
this sentiment remains both true and relevant
to today’s IBM. One of the key competencies
that IBM looks for in its leaders is the ability to
‘continuously transform’ what they do and how
they do it. Another key leadership competency
is strategic risk taking. “You can’t transform a
business without taking risk”, says Andrew Stevens,
Managing Director of IBM Australia and
New Zealand.
At the heart of change and risk taking is innovation.
IBM encourages innovation that matters for the
company and for the world, developing intellectual
property that has future application and innovation
that solves problems in the community. This
innovative application of technology means that
work has shifted from creating innovative products,
to the services business of helping clients realise
their full potential, in business or the community.
While these competencies are expected at the
leadership level, IBM recognises the need to build
future leaders by empowering front line staff with
the ability to make decisions and resolve problems.
Decision-making is therefore pushed right down
to front-line staff. “All large organisations have a
level of contention in them. That contention is best
resolved as close to the client as possible”, says Stevens.
In Australia and New Zealand, the organisation model
is designed on this theory, with the matrix structure
enabling front-line employees to resolve problems
and to develop and implement solutions locally.
Scan the QR code or go to:
http://www.haygroup.com/au/focus13video6
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