If you’re hoping to totally transform the culture of an organisation, remember the process isn’t simply about honing in on behaviours. You’ll need to consider how best to reshape deeply held beliefs and motivations and learn how to truly activate new behaviours and sustain the changes you’re seeking long-term. Here are four successful strategies you can employ to generate lasting cultural change.
Disrupting Existing Beliefs
An organisation’s culture tends to be built upon its beliefs. So if you need to shift these, or move towards a more customer-focussed or transformational goal, you’ll first need to identify exactly what these entrenched beliefs are. You might find resistance at first, with many doubting that change is even possible at all. If you can begin to demonstrate some small wins, minor shifts and little milestones, though, you can begin to break through the skepticism. Looking into tools like Empathy Maps can help to foster curiosity in the workplace.
Boosting Motivation
Learn about what drives your people. If you have a clear and well tailored proposition for transformation, that really aligns with individual motivations, change can become a little more accepted and even exciting. Understanding what makes your employees tick can help you to truly tailor these strategies. A Customer Experience Agency can also help you to achieve this.
Activating Behaviours
To activate new behaviours effectively, you’ll need to provide both clarity and specificity – not vagueness. Your team should be aware of clear expectations – they should know exactly which behaviours are expected, and which are to be phased out within the organisation. Behaviour manuals, interactive training and practice sessions can help you to achieve this and empower your workforce, Again, a customer experience agency can support this.
Sustaining the Culture
If your new culture is to really embed into the workplace for the long-term, you’ll need to consider alignment. Make sure your organisational systems, structures and processes are properly aligned with the behaviours you’re seeking. You can reinforce your cultural shift within existing programmes, such as performance reviews or recognition programmes.
