Define Organizational Culture and Manage Change

• Are you using culture to drive organizational change?

• Are your employees engaged at work?

• Do you know how to conduct an organizational culture assessment?

Now there is a change management strategy for defining organizational culture, engaging employees, and leading organizational change. This unique process starts at the core of your culture and lets you manage change from the inside out.

Let Sheila Margolis, PhD–President of Workplace Culture Institute–guide your organization so that culture becomes the force that drives your business. Workplace Culture Institute is a consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, serving companies globally.

Contact Sheila to learn how she can support your company in defining and shaping your organizational culture and in using culture to manage change.

Learn about her consulting services, invite her to speak to your group and read her books.

Read about Organizational Culture and Change

Read Sheila’s books to discover how to use culture to bring change to your organization:

• Building a Culture of Distinction: Facilitator Guide for Defining Organizational Culture and Managing Change. If you purchase the eBook version, go to this link for copies of worksheets.
• Building a Culture of Distinction: Participant Workbook for Defining Organizational Culture and Managing Change
• There Is No Place Like Work Workbook: Job Seeker Manual–discover how to evaluate culture fit
• There Is No Place Like Work: Seven Leadership Insights for Creating a Workplace to Call Home

1. Organizational Culture and Change

• Do you know how to use organizational culture to bring change to your company?

Does everyone in your organization know and live by the values that are core to your culture? And if there is the need for change, do you know how to integrate new values that will make the business more competitive?

Whether going through leadership change, a merger or acquisition, rapid growth, unsettling economic times or a drop in employee morale, defining organizational culture and aligning organizational culture with strategy is fundamental to business success.

• Can you define your organizational culture?

Whatever you call it–organizational culture, corporate culture, or workplace culture–it does not matter. What matters is whether or not you can define it. Don’t let culture be a cloud that no one can easily share and communicate.

To build a culture of distinction, you must first define the unique culture of your organization–the vital Purpose, the distinctive and enduring Philosophy, and the strategic Priorities. When you can define the organizational culture, you can evaluate how well it positions the business for success and, if need be, you can change the culture so you can better compete and thrive.

Strategy and change management initiatives must be linked to the culture of the workplace. If practices are not in sync with the values at the heart of the organization’s culture, change will be difficult to sustain.

 

2. Employee Engagement

• Do you use culture to engage your employees?

To build a culture of distinction, you must have employees who are engaged in the work they do as well as the culture where they do it. Discover how to integrate the universal Priorites into your organizational culture so you retain top talent. Employee engagement matters. Discover the employee engagement principles that motivate people to be their best.

3. Current blog topics on organizational culture and change and employee engagement

• Culture interview with CEO of Pear Analytics
  I conducted an interview with Ryan Kelly, founder and CEO of Pear Analytics, a web startup in San Antonio, Texas. They build search engine optimization tools and software to help make SEO accessible to everyone. This interview focused on the culture of Pear Analytics—its purpose and core values. SM. What is [More…]
  
• Organizational change model: The Five Ps
  The Five Ps is a model that depicts a system-​​wide view of an organization. You can use the Five Ps to understand your organizational culture and to use culture to manage change. Once you have defined the central three Ps of the Core Culture, you can bring change by aligning the [More…]
  
• Organizational change models: a four-​​​​step organizational change process
  The Building a Culture of Distinction program is a four-​​step process for bringing needed change to an organization. Use this process to guide you in using culture to drive change. The steps of the organizational change process are as follows: 1. Define the Core Culture of your organization  Define your organization’s central principles—its [More…]
  
• Organizational culture assessment–questions to consider
  When conducting an Organizational Culture Assessment, use these questions as a guide when collecting information through interviews, open-​​ended surveys and/​or focus groups. During interviews, be sure to ask follow-​​up questions to enrich the information you collect. Encourage examples and stories. Although the questions are designed to reveal particular attributes of the [More…]
  
• What is an organizational culture assessment?
  An organizational culture assessment is a process for defining and shaping the culture of your company. The outcome is a well-​​defined set of Core Culture principles and values (the vital Purpose, the distinctive Philosophy, and the strategic Priorities) that center the organization and provide the criteria for all employee practices. If [More…]
  
• What is organizational culture change?
  When things are not going well—for example, good employees are leaving, commitment seems lacking, productivity is not up to par—an organization needs to make some changes. But where do you start? Unless the remedy is clear, rather than making isolated changes, the smarter strategy is to examine the culture of [More…]
  
• Use organizational Purpose to unite employees
  Purpose: Why is this Work Important? The Purpose of an organization is the most central component of its culture. The Purpose defines why the organization exists. The Purpose is not the answer to the question “What does the organization do?” That typically focuses on products, services and customers. Instead, the Purpose [More…]
  
• Organizational alignment and Southwest Airlines
  Organizational alignment is a beautiful thing. When the image that a company projects to consumers is consistent with both the customer experience and the values of the company, you have alignment. No mixed messages. Think about your company: What are your company values? How do employees behave with each other? How do employees [More…]