How can you adopt a Culture Change mindset?

1 Assess your current culture

Before you can change your culture, you need to understand what it is and how it affects your work and relationships. A culture change assessment is a tool that helps you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current culture, as well as the gaps and opportunities for improvement. You can use a culture change assessment to evaluate aspects such as communication, collaboration, leadership, trust, diversity, and learning. By doing so, you will gain insights into how your culture supports or hinders your performance and satisfaction.

2 Define your desired culture

Once you have a clear picture of your current culture, you can start to envision what you want your future culture to look like. A desired culture is a set of values, beliefs, and behaviors that reflect your vision, mission, and goals, and that foster a positive and productive environment. You can define your desired culture by asking yourself questions such as: What are the core values that guide our actions and decisions? How do we want to communicate and collaborate with each other and with our stakeholders? How do we want to lead and empower our teams? How do we want to embrace diversity and inclusion? How do we want to learn and grow?

3 Identify and address barriers

Changing your culture is not easy, and you will likely encounter some barriers along the way. These barriers can be internal or external, and they can affect your motivation, commitment, and ability to change. Some common barriers are: resistance to change, fear of failure, lack of resources, conflicting priorities, and organizational inertia. To adopt a culture change mindset, you need to identify and address these barriers, and find ways to overcome them. You can do this by: acknowledging and addressing the emotions and concerns of yourself and others, seeking feedback and support, prioritizing and allocating resources, aligning and communicating your goals, and celebrating and rewarding progress.

4 Engage and influence others

Changing your culture is not something you can do alone. You need to engage and influence others to join you in the journey and to contribute to the change. You can do this by: building trust and rapport, communicating your vision and purpose, listening and empathizing, providing feedback and coaching, inspiring and motivating, and collaborating and co-creating. By engaging and influencing others, you will create a shared sense of ownership and responsibility for the change, and you will leverage the diverse skills and perspectives of your colleagues.

5 Experiment and learn

Changing your culture is not a linear or predictable process. It requires experimentation and learning, as you try new things, test assumptions, and adapt to feedback and results. You can do this by: adopting a growth mindset, embracing uncertainty and ambiguity, seeking and applying feedback, learning from failures and successes, and sharing and spreading best practices. By experimenting and learning, you will foster a culture of innovation and improvement, and you will discover new and better ways of working and relating.

6 Sustain and evolve

Changing your culture is not a one-time event. It is an ongoing and dynamic process, as you monitor and evaluate the impact of your change, and as you respond to new challenges and opportunities. You can do this by: measuring and tracking your progress and outcomes, reviewing and refining your goals and strategies, reinforcing and rewarding your desired behaviors, and anticipating and adapting to changes in your context and environment. By sustaining and evolving your culture, you will ensure that it remains relevant and effective, and that it supports your long-term success and satisfaction.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?