Culture
Sustainable change is driven by the people involved in it. That’s why viable relationships are the foundation and key drivers of any change project. Deliberately shaping relationships also means shaping culture.
Working on organisational cultures calls for sensitivity and empathy: the existing culture must first be recognised, understood and valued before embarking on the journey of cultural evolution with a carefully measured step-by-step approach. As experienced experts in change processes we know that the nexus between the past, present and future is an important parameter of success in any transformation.
Our systemic approach and our systemic thinking are instrumental in helping stakeholders to see a bigger picture such as the team, the department or the organisation as a whole. We focus particularly on communication, language and relationship design as defining elements of any organisational culture. The result is a systematic process which, tailored to the respective target audiences, leads to sustainable cultural change.
We view cultural work as an iterative process. Together with our clients, we think in terms of new identities and mind-sets in order to jointly calibrate them for the relevant organisation, while constantly keeping our eye on our clients’ needs.
Cultural interventions A way of getting to the bottom of things
Basic assumptions –
Things that are taken for granted and not challenged are not consciously perceived.
Values/standards –
General inclination to give specific circumstances preference over others; feelings about how things should be.
Rituals –
Collective activities that are actually unnecessary to achieve the desired goals.
‘Heroes’ –
People with traits that are highly respected in a culture (behavioural role models).
Symbols –
Words, gestures, images, objects with a specific meaning are recognised by those belonging to the same culture.
Successful cultural work follows specific milestones: an assessment and in-depth diagnosis of the organisation’s current state are the departure points on the development journey towards an envisaged cultural outcome. Once this has been described, elements supporting the new culture will be established. This, not least, includes the implementation of structures and processes that will promote the new identity and new thinking in the long run. The evaluation of their effectiveness based on defined indicators in turn provides reference points for a continual fine-tuning process.
Facets of change
