Windward Leadership is uniquely qualified to assist your organizational transformation in a way that yields durable results. Our credentials include:
- Certificate of Mastery in Designing and Implementing High Performance Processes, and Implementing the Process of Change, from the master himself, Dr. Michael Hammer.
- Certified education in Socio-Technical Organizational Design and Managing Through Teams by another master in his craft, Lawrence M. Miller.
- Certified education in Organizational Learning, Leadership and Mastery from the master himself, Dr. Peter Senge.
- Certification in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Advanced Leadership, directly from the legendary Dr. Stephen R. Covey.
However, while concepts and theory may look good on paper, we all know that does not mean they work in practice. Using a “Plan-Do-Check-Adjust,” or PDCA, cycle, we have taken those theories from the safe, predictable confines of the conceptual laboratory to the irregularities and ambiguities of real life.
Steps
Plan
1) Charter the effort: define the desired results; identify guidelines for its conduct focusing on “no-no’s” and avoiding dictating method; define the governance and accountability mechanisms to be used; outline the resources available to the effort; and articulate the consequences of the effort’s success and its failure.
2) Select and commission the team(s) to conduct and govern the effort.
3) Use our proven models and principles to understand your organization's current state.
4) Define the desired state in terms of desired organizational behaviors.
5) Define the organizational tools available to stimulate and regulate the organizational behavioral change process (e.g., education, training, coaching, mentoring, etc.).
6) Use our proven models and principles to formulate the plans for cultivating the desired behaviors.
7) Define the metrics to be used to measure success and/or alert to failure.
8) Define the process for monitoring progress against those measures of success and failure alarms.
Do
9) Implement the cultural change plan, metrics, and monitoring process(es).
Check
10) Monitor actual cultural behaviors vs. desired state, as measured by progress against measures of success and failure alarms.
Adjust
11) Adjust the cultural change plan, metrics, and/or monitoring process(es), as warranted.
Iterate
12) Repeat steps 9-11, as necessary.
Alternative Tacks
Too often, organizations tackle cultural change using a “big bang” approach—they attack the entire culture in one fell swoop. For smaller organizations and those in an earlier lifecycle stage, this might be do-able and advisable. However, if the dimensions of your organization are larger and necessarily more sophisticated, or your organization is in a latter lifecycle stage, then the probability of success for such a big-bang approach diminishes rapidly for a variety of reasons; examples include:
- The effort is launched and conducted with a lot of pomp and circumstance which only serves to exacerbate the jaundiced eye through which most employees have come to view such grandiose efforts (i.e., another management fad that they just need to endure until it runs out of gas).
- The sheer size of the effort dominates/preoccupies the consciousness of the organization to the exclusion of everything else, and disrupts the production of those outputs that customers value.
- The effort stretches the organization beyond its ability to manage.
- The effort stretches leadership beyond their attention span.
In the case of larger, more sophisticated, later lifecycle stage organizations, it often makes more sense to conduct the change effort in chunks that piggy back on customer “billable” projects. That is, don’t conduct your change effort as a project unto itself. Rather, conduct your change effort as one of the desired outcomes in how a customer billable project is conducted.
And while you don’t want to be covert about it, neither do you want to conduct it with a lot of pomp and circumstance, banners and slogans. Durable change is the kind that people notice 6-12 months after it has happened. As they look back they won’t be able to cite any particular causal event, they’ll just notice that things are better now than they were 6-12 months ago—perfect!
Team Composition
As with process re-engineering, more important than the approach is the team that leads the effort. The hard truth is that the organization’s leadership must lead the cultural change. Just as we look to those who operate, maintain, and manage a process to conduct the re-engineering of that process, we look to those who operate, maintain, and manage the culture to cultivate the requisite cultural change—the leadership team. Cultural change cannot be delegated to someone from your Human Resources Department, your Organization Development Department, or to any consultant (including us). We will expertly guide, coach, and mentor you and your team through the effort, but the organization’s leadership must lead the cultural change.
Go on to learn about our approach for process improvement…
Return to leading cultural change main page…
Return to whole system organizational improvement main page…
