Seizing the Opportunity to (Re) Design Your Culture
Questions, questions, questions. That is all that seems to be on everyone’s mind. Some as simple as how are we going to go back to work? But most more fundamental, such as what is our purpose as an organization? What are our true values? What kind of leadership do we provide?
Even if we wanted to, there is no going back to how things were before this crisis. There’s going to be huge external pressure from customers, partners and stakeholders – all expecting us to do things in new and different ways. The question is: how brave is our organization, and will we start seeing the opportunity to make substantial changes that can set our business for the next 5 years or maybe more?
Whatever the new normal is for your organization, it is a change process. And change requires a shift in behaviors. The way we do things will change. That is what culture is. It is what we do. It is the default setting. It is what happens when we are not planning.
Changing processes and introducing new technology without changing behavior – without changing the culture – is a recipe for chaos. Culture change must be given the same amount of attention and focus that would be given to financial planning.
Over the past few months we have been nudged, in so many ways, to do things differently. There have been benefits and, of course, some downsides. Some of the changes in our behavior we may have not liked, while some were easier than others. So how do we decide what are the behaviors that we need to get rid of completely? What do we need to keep but modify? What do we need to embrace? And what do we need to hold on to?
We must take out the guessing and bring in the science. By applying behavioral science and people analytics we can then literally design (or re-design) our organizational culture to make it fit for purpose. With that scientific data we can then set the agenda for the future. That is the power of CultureScope – the only tool born out of behavioral science that not only actually measures an organization’s culture by measuring behavior but can also predict what kind of results your organization will produce based on the current behavior of staff and the organization.
Trust, for example, is one of the highly sought-after values among almost all of the businesses and organizations I have worked with. But trust – like any other value – does not come from doing one thing; it’s a number of combined behaviors that lead to trust. The research and years of work done at iPsychTec concluded that the presence of three specific behaviors (Team focus, Active learning, Conformity) will predict the level of Trust in that organization. And of course, we all know that what can be measured, can be changed.
We are living through exceptional times of change on so many levels. On an organizational level, these changes are not being imposed from headquarters or management. It’s very clear that most leaders still don’t have all the answers to this situation. The notion that everyone has a role and can help to shape this is more appealing than ever before. Every single one of us has received a fantastic invitation to be part of the solution. What are you doing with it?