Alter and Adjust: Successfully Driving Cultural Transformation in the Workplace

In an effort to adapt to the rapidly changing marketplace, many organizations undergo various large-scale change initiatives in hopes of achieving a competitive advantage. One of the primary best practices associated with successful change is to make an intentional effort to shape organizational culture to support and achieve business results.

Culture can be a source of resistance to change; however, the forces that cause resistance can also be used to drive successful change. Cultural transformation initiatives can be important strategic levers and can be used to create alignment between the organization’s values, beliefs, and goals.  Directly addressing elements of an organization’s culture can combat stagnant work practices and reinvigorate top talent.

To create a unified culture that drives organizational change, WLH uses five key principles:

• Culture change takes place more effectively when worked at three levels: organization, team, and individual
• Culture change is accelerated by connecting individual beliefs to organizational results
• Culture change requires a planned and disciplined implementation cascade
• Culture change is accelerated by using a “leader-led learning” approach
• Technology should be leveraged for communications, measurement, and reporting successes to reinforce cultural change

These principles draw on classic theory and practice for effective organizational change and cultural transformation. Our approach includes a unique emphasis on the role of individual beliefs, a disciplined implementation cascade, and leader-led learning to drive adoption and develop sustainable change. Using these five key principles will help align and leverage your organization’s culture to support large-scale change initiatives.

After working on many projects with different clients, WLH realized the need for an effective change implementation framework and developed “The 5C’s of Transition Leadership™.” This program enhances individual change agility and readies leaders to guide peers through change-driven transitions.