Organization Culture Consulting
Organization culture consulting:
Organizational culture is defined as the underlying beliefs, assumptions, values and ways of interacting that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. Our team of consultants can help you understand how to use culture as a key driver of performance.
A) Culture Transformation
B) Culture in Mergers and Acquisition
C) Startup/Rapid growth culture
D) Customer experience culture
E) Safety Culture
Culture Transformation
Organizational culture transformation is sometimes necessary and a “hard reset” is what it will take to compete in the next chapter of your organization. Enterprise transformation efforts are complex and culture plays a huge role. We help our clients understand their current culture and determine what the culture will need to look like in order to drive sustainable behavior change required for long-term success.
Any number of internal or external changes can cause misalignment and warrant an organizational shift. Whether it’s a change in leadership, merger or acquisition, reorganization, or changes in the market, the impact is the same: What used to feel effortless is now an uphill battle. Many organizations know when they are in need of change. Small issues in one area or department now seem systemic. Behaviors and attitudes about work are changing. Austerity, ambiguity, and productivity issues may be permeating.
Organizations recognize when there is a need for change, even if they don’t fully understand what needs changing or where to start in order to address these issues. We help our clients take a thoughtful approach to managing and leading their organizations through a culture change in ways that mitigate risk, engage key stakeholders, and ensure the new behaviors are quickly embedded into the “way people do things” day-to-day.
Through the proven success of our change management methodology, our consultants support clients in organizational culture change by assessing readiness for the change, identifying and closing skill and knowledge gaps through training, and developing strategic communication plans to ensure a successful implementation.
Culture in Mergers and Acquisition
If hope is your plan to integrate organizations during M&A transactions you are exposing yourself to enormous risk. What, on the surface, seems like a marriage made in heaven can oftentimes reveal ugly truths when integrations are stymied by fundamental cultural differences. Getting ahead of this is key to a successful M&A growth strategy. Data suggests between 60 to 80 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail. While many factors are at play during integration, most organizations fail to recognize the power of organizational culture in the success, or failure, of a deal to achieve its intended targets.
Startup/Rapid growth culture
Rapid growth can be exciting. It can also present real risks as organizations grapple with the struggles of startup life. Taking the time to establish and clarify a clear “right” way of doing things early on can help maintain your momentum as you scale. Not making time to establish a firm foundation can fray the system as you grow.
4 Things to Know When Scaling Startup Culture
Here are a few considerations to be intentional about creating a culture that will best serve your organization as you grow.
Managing the tension between flexibility and a solid foundation for growth can be challenging. But, setting a firm set of expectations can help ensure your team doesn’t come into work to find a completely different animal every morning.
Being inclusive from the start helps your team build a personal connection to what’s most important. This means involving all of your team members in conversations about the company values and growth strategy. Although your company’s culture is heavily rooted in your personal values, there are more and more people influencing the way work gets done as the organization grows. The better they understand the boundaries for their behavior and the deeper “why” behind what you do, the better equipped they will be to evolve the culture in ways that keep you most relevant in the market.
Taking the time to articulate what makes your organization unique, valuable, and successful is never a bad idea. But culture is not a stagnant cornerstone of your company. As the environment evolves around you, it will become essential that your organization takes stock of how you are adapting to stay relevant. Over time, what works today may not sustain you in the future. Organizations that keep a pulse on these changes will be better positioned to adapt in ways that launch them forward while their competitors struggle to keep up.
Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road. At the end of the day, your name is on the bottom line. When it comes to the culture of your growing organization, understand that culture, at its most basic, is a collective concept. Although you may have a heavy influence based on your position, the culture is established and evolves based on collective learning, collective understanding, and the collective reinforcement of the company’s values. Don’t feel like it all rests on you. Engage your people in ongoing discussions about the culture, what it means to them, and how it may need to evolve in order to stay competitive.
Customer experience culture
With leaders like Apple, Lyft, and Disney creating impeccable experiences that give customers what they want when they want is, customer expectations are increasing. Ignoring this simple truth will inevitably put you behind your competitors who continue to improve the experiences that they deliver. Regardless of your business or sector, customer experience is non-negotiable. Organizations that have the most success:
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- Put themselves in the shoes of their customers
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- Understand their end-to-end customer journeys
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- Isolate the moments that disproportionately shape the experience
Inqserve equips businesses with the skills they need to make the most of the strengths that they already have and improve to succeed in the long term.
Safety Culture
Safety culture is the sum of what an organization is and does in the pursuit of safety. Creating an organizational culture that drives and reinforces the behaviors that are required to support safe operations is a fundamental need. Inqserve can help your organization design and implement a plan that aligns with your business.
a) Apply a transparent, non-punitive approach to reporting and learning from adverse events, close calls, and unsafe conditions.
b) Use clear, just, and transparent risk-based processes for recognizing and distinguishing human errors and system errors from unsafe, blameworthy actions.
c) CEOs and all leaders adopt and model appropriate behaviors and champion efforts to eradicate intimidating behaviors.
d) Policies support safety culture and the reporting of adverse events, close calls, and unsafe conditions. These policies are enforced and communicated to all team members.
e) Recognize care team members who report adverse events and close calls, who identify unsafe conditions, or who have good suggestions for safety improvements. Share these “free lessons” with all team members.
f) Determine an organizational baseline measure on safety culture performance using a validated tool.
g) Analyze safety culture survey results from across the organization to find opportunities for quality and safety improvement.
h) Use information from safety assessments and/or surveys to develop and implement unit-based quality and safety improvement initiatives designed to improve the culture of safety.
i) Embed safety culture team training into quality improvement projects and organizational process to strengthen safety systems
j) Proactively assess system strengths and vulnerabilities, and prioritize them for enhancement or improvement.
k) Repeat organizational assessment of safety culture every 18 to 24 months to review progress and sustain improvement.
Culture Management
High-performing organizations don’t wait for problems to arise before taking action, they continuously take stock of where they’re at and where they’re going and they adapt along the way. Culture management begins with committed leadership because the company’s culture always reflects the beliefs and values of its leaders. Leaders need to take a tactical and practical approach to manage their desired culture on a daily basis.
This can be recognizing someone for a job well done or stopping into a colleague’s office to say hello. It could also be integrating modern technology to make work easier or offering flexibility and allowing employees to manage their own time.
The Inqserve team can partner with you to develop a customized culture management plan to keep your organization’s culture on track for years to come.