What's the best way to define and communicate your Culture Change vision and goals?

It always comes back to culture by design, or culture by default? The biggest reason most companies struggle with culture is because they don't have a clear vision of what they would like their work environment to look like. They may know what they don't want - but if you want a clear and strong culture, it can't merely be defined by "dont's". Vision should be aspirational: - What are the long-term aims of the organisation? - Therefore, what are the conditions required to achieve those goals? - What culture is needed to create those conditions? Then intentionally design your culture, and the behaviours needed to reach your aims. Remember, you will have a culture either way. Is it by design, or by default?

Storytelling can enhance this step by creating a narrative that not only outlines the vision but also explains the "why" behind the change. Stories can be used to illustrate the current culture's shortcomings and the desired future state in a relatable and emotional way.

Exploring a change in culture, or a strengthening of culture should only exist to meet one aim: Organisational goals. What are the aims of the organisation, and what environment is required to achieve those aims? Remember, company culture isn't just a "nice to have", but it is a business strategy, no different than any other business strategy. Only that while other strategies may focus on your product/service, or marketing. Culture serves your business in the realm of collaboration, innovation, performance, and retaining talent. Even on the surface, if you wanted a more "fun" culture. It would be to serve a larger business goal. For instance, fun environments are more creative, and have lower stress levels for higher performance.

Visual narratives can provide a roadmap, using visuals to represent each goal, making it easier for stakeholders to grasp the specifics and alignment with the vision.

For any successful culture change, you need your people on board. A culture change that is not taken on-board, isn't really a culture change now is it? Employees may be used to working a certain way, and depending on the scale of your culture change, behaviours may be harder to change. Don't fall into the trap of making culture change a top-down only initiative. Here are 4 conditions needed for communicating culture change. Your people need: - Full information about the change and decision - Alignment and shared purpose - Opportunity to give input or speak about how the change will occur - Understanding of how change will occur and how decisions will be made. When communicating, ensure that all 4 conditions are taken into account.

Storytelling plays a crucial role in communicating the vision and goals by crafting narratives that resonate emotionally and logically with the audience. Visual narratives can be integrated into the communication plan by using graphics or illustrations to reinforce key messages, ensuring consistency and clarity in conveying the vision and its benefits.

This is really the hard part of culture change. Everyone can talk about it, but them it's time to walk the talk. While vision is typically high level and generic, to align actions to them needs granularity. You need to turn cultural visions into smaller actionable behaviours, and create systems and processes to ensure those behaviours are being carried out on the ground. You can't say one thing, and act a different way. Your vision and the behaviours that are aligned with it should be visible throughout the day to day: - Hire by it - Fire by it - Promote by it - Give continuous feedback and performance management based on culture. You implement culture change by ensuring behaviours change in alignment to your values.

Defining CULTURE CHANGE vision and goals, communicating it right, driving effective change strategy and initiatives requires involving key stakeholders reflecting on core values, purpose, and strategic direction as we co-create with emotions and logic. It is also important to break complex to simple, prioritize on impact, urgency and feasibility, and setting clear indicators Being innovative in design, soliciting feedback from respective sources - timely adjusting/updating as per the need, rewarding achievements/contributions and enabling continuous development. As we review and revise our policies, processes and systems, train-coach-mentor, the actions and behaviors that model shift in mindsets we celebrate the success with impact.

Here's the nasty part that nobody likes to talk about. When you start to get serious about culture, you will start to exclude people and behaviours. Not everybody is going to be on board. People are going to hate it, people are going to leave. And that's okay. In fact, it's a good thing. Because what will be left are people who believe in the culture vision, and are willing to behave in the way that is expected. You can't create a new culture with the wrong people present. Keeping personnel who don't agree with your culture change will compromise the success of your culture implementation. Curation by nature requires exclusion. Not everyone will like it, not everyone will stay - and that's completely fine.

Have you thought about the 'culture' risks ? Investing in culture is a long term investment. However , once an organisation is on the journey it should prepare for 'culture' risks. 3 of them are below 1. Short term business goals 'lure' - Often, it could be easier to solve a problem with a quick fix which might come at a cost of the 'culture' vision Eg. - Hiring for a strong sales leader in a tough quarter who might not be best aligned to values 2. Inadequate governance - Like any other project , it is essential to create a strong governance and monitoring framework to ensure momentum doesn't die. 3. Generalizing most initiatives as a part of culture building. Ensure it does not become a stamp to validate any and all changes