What is the cause of cultural change in organizations today?
Some leaders are intentionally trying to bring about a cultural change within the organization while some other changes are brought about by mergers and acquisitions. The transition is of course smoother for all employees if the change in culture is not drastic. However, if the merger or change results in a misfit culture, it is difficult for all the employees to continue with effective high performance. If employees enjoyed working in the previous culture, a sudden misfit can cause a culture shock. A well-thought intervention is then needed for the change programs to work and to orient the employees to the new culture.
If we look at the evolution of coaching, it initially started for individual development. However, we now see coaching interventions being used to especially improve organizational culture, although its still in its infancy stage. The application of coaching principles and methodologies as part of cultural change interventions has brought about a well-defined result and positive outcome to manage cultural change. Hence, it is being used popularly in the domain of cultural change services.
Culture flows top down in any organization. The major merger of culture occurs at the group level among the senior leaders in an organization. It further cascades down from them to the rest of the organization. Therefore, if the leaders disagree to the values and behaviors of the organization that defines the strategic vision and goals, the same will be modelled by the employees. That is where Executive Coaching can come into the picture.
A coach can become an integral part of cultural change by coaching the leaders and leadership groups in accepting the new culture, defining values and behaviors that needs to be demonstrated and creating rituals that can be practiced to enforce the culture. Strengthscape’s Cultural Change services include executive coaching that helps the leaders of the organization combat the side-effects of a misfit culture.
The DANCE methodology used by us is process-oriented and personalised for the leaders. It starts with discovering the area of improvement required by the specific leader to adapt to the cultural change. Moves on to creating action plans and rituals that the leader at his individual and team level can implement to reinforce the cultural change, thus, helping others to adapt as well. The methodology gives enough scope to leaders to check progress and make course corrections so that the strategies implemented are full-proof and has a high success rate. It also gives the leaders to integrate the business aspect of the organization with the behavioral aspect of values and culture. After an individual level coaching, the leaders can come together for group level coaching to collaborate in the journey of cultural change.
Strengthscape’s DANCE methodology is a remarkable product that can be used as part of cultural change services in organizations irrespective of the sector and across roles. It is a model that can be applied for all, is flexible and has resulted in successful cultural change adaptation time and again.