Assessing the cultural challenges

Executive Summary

1.     Assessing, and understanding the existing corporate culture prior to launching a change effort substantially increases the prospects of success.

2.     Undertaking the assessment will help senior managers decide how far they want the culture to shift and to visualize the considerable challenges ahead.

3.     An employee opinion survey can be a powerful mechanism for assessing, and measuring changes to, the corporate culture. But, Business Intelligence's culture change research shows that any results must lead to improvement initiatives.

4.     Several cultural assessment tools are profiled here, one being the Normative Systems Culture Change Process devised by the US-based Human Resource Institute Inc. This provides a significant number of questions to ask when planning and rolling out the cultural elements of a change project.

5.     Understanding the power of organizational subcultures is vital for succeeding with a change effort.

6.     Similarly, understanding the 'unwritten rules' of the organization is critical for driving change forward.

7.     Resistance to change, the research shows, is a natural reaction by many people. Understanding the reasons for this is also an important lever of change.

8.     Case studies on Superdrug and DSM Resins, demonstrate best practice.

If you are a subscriber, click here to read the full briefing.

Click here to find out how to subscribe.