Essence of Organizational Culture Transformation
Decades of globalization, social norms, and organizing work have instigated a need for organizational culture change. Organizational culture refers to the values and beliefs leading to a unique psychological and social environment of an organization. This essay highlights the importance of culture change by Arthur Carmazzi and the stages involved. The essay also highlights how leaders create a sustainable organizational change.
The Importance of Culture Change According to Arthur Carmazzi
Carmazzi discusses the five pillars of transformation through which the importance of culture change are featured. He points out good teamwork as a necessity for supporting each other while in the workplace. A culture change that aims to promote better teamwork initiates fun at work and people find it easier and enjoyable working in that organization. Additionally, organizational culture is a key indicator of success and potential employees will tend to assess it before joining the organization. In this regard, a changing culture that aims to create an ideal working environment plays an important role in attracting the best employees.
The Stages of Culture Change
Cultural change involves several stages including a commitment to change. Initiating a change starts with a desire and a commitment to change the culture. This involves accepting and embracing the challenges associated with adapting to the changes. The second step is defining success. For a culture change to be effective, it is important to have an ideal picture of how a healthy culture looks like, to make it easier and meaningful to start working towards it. The other stage is assessing reality (Jurkowski, 2012). This involves featuring the effects of culture on the health and performance of the organization. The stage also entails observing how people attend meetings and whether they work on ideas discussed in such meetings (Jurkowski, 2012). If meetings are long and boring, the employees may be reluctant in attending and hence, facing this reality is a great hint to embrace a changing culture.
The fourth stage is focusing on changing one habit at a time. In an organization, it is possible to have several things that seem not to be in order. As a result, a leader may be tempted to attempt changing everything at a go. While this could be tedious and illogical, it is important to change one aspect which largely influences the rest of the aspects within the system (Jurkowski, 2012). The final stage is reflecting and learning. This involves a periodic look-back to assess the progress which allows re-alignment to assume the right direction towards change. Reflecting helps the employees to keep the change mindset alert and instill it into daily habits.
How Leaders Can Create a Sustainable Organizational Culture Change
Establishing sustainable organizational culture change is important and involves a commitment and periodic assessment of the progress. In this regard, leaders should embrace effective ways that aim to maintain a healthy culture change in several ways (Schein & Schein, 2017). For instance, leaders should allow negative emotions from the employees. A change is generally difficult to embrace and some people may criticize its need. However, leaders should avoid raising their emotions towards other’s reactions (Denison, 2012). They should also clearly communicate the vision of the organizational future. Regular updates of such vision allow the employees to remain aware that a culture change is being implemented.
Generally, organizational culture change is important. The video by Arthur Carmazzi featured the five pillars of transformation that enable us to understand the importance of culture change. Change involves several stages including committing to change, defining success, assessing the reality, focusing on changing one habit at a time, and periodic reflecting. The leaders should engage the employees to promote a sustainable culture change.
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