More on a behavioral approach to culture....
We've also developed a comprehensive database of the best-practices cultural principles. It covers 13 themes, including ethics, integrity, customer focus, teamwork, entrepreneurship, empowerment, interpersonal relations, and risk.
This process engages the leadership team in defining the ideal behaviors, rolling them out to all staff, and then reinforcing them over time.
This very pragmatic approach, consistent with learning theory, leads to visible culture change within months, and widespread adoption of a new culture in less than a year.
Benefits include:
- Clearly documented behaviors that add up to the desired culture; used for teaching, guidance on day-to-day issues, and orientation of new staff.
- Widespread buy-in to, and understanding of, the new culture.
- Visible changes in staff's behaviors within months on issues such as ethics, integrity, interpersonal relations, teamwork and cooperation, meetings, empowerment, customer focus, entrepreneurship, quality, and risk.
There are 7 steps in a proven, participative change process that results in a significant shift in culture in less than one year.
Overview of the 7-step participative culture change process....
The Culture in Action implementation process is a series of guided workshops for a leadership team that build consensus on, and then implement, a clearly defined culture. Comprehensive facilitation, or custom process.
Step 1: Craft behavioral principles.
This workshop builds on the cumulative work of over a thousand executives in a variety of corporate, government, and not-for-profit institutions over a period of 15 years. Under NDMA's guidance, each team of executives has enhanced the work of past teams, contributing new ideas and greater clarity. The result is a comprehensive and detailed definition of a "world class" culture.
Step 2: Gain participation from the next tier of managers (optional, for large organizations).
Step 3: Plan the rollout process.
Step 4: Announce the rest of the process to staff.
Step 5: Conduct detailed staff education in small groups, theme by theme.
Step 6: Roll up staff input, and modify the behavioral principles based on their input.
Step 7: Assess progress and develop a reinforcement plan in specific targeted areas.
