How can you gain experience in Culture Change at the start of your career?

I would start by practicing your (ethnographic) observation skills. Google or check YouTube to find out what ethnography is, and just start by hanging out a few hours in an organization, a train station, or just use the context where you already work! Observing and skillfully and methodologically indicating what behavioral patterns are going on in a culture is really where to start. Don’t start with what this article says: thinking up what kind of culture change you want to be a part of. Would a good psychologist think up in advance what advice they want to give? No: you first get to know your subject. People and their cultural patterns.

If you truly want to reach big objectives in your life, you have to work for it. And that all starts with pursuing purpose, setting a goal and then taking action. Goals are your fuel for the furnace of achievement. We all need goals to help us move forward, to spark a fire within us, to enable us to see what is possible. To move beyound the past and move into a progressive future. All though some might venture to think life circumstances influence or shape the world around them, in reality it is in our thoughts that promotes our actions as to how we handle our life situations that create our circumstances. Taking control of ones circumstances by stting goals rather than allowing them to take control of you takes thought promoted skill.

The most critical focus should be on the problem you are trying to solve or area you want to improve and what outcomes or results, ideally measurable results, are you targeting. This can exist at an organizational level but it also should exist in most small work groups or teams. The same culture fundamentals apply in a small work group and across an organization. Ed Schein advocated against focusing on culture because “culture can be a bottomless pit” focus on a problem, challenge or goal you can influence and how culture is helping and hindering progress.

1. Keenly observe how different people work, without being judgemental 2. Seek a mentor from a different function/field of work 3. Participate in community services - helps in building a network and learning empathy 4. Be open to travel/different assignments/cross-functional projects Overall, embrace a mindset that there is no good, bad or ugly - but only different perspectives!

Seeking a mentor in this space is very beneficial early in your career. However, you also want to be sure that you find a mentor who is open minded to YOUR feedback. Just because some of us have "been there, done that" doesn't mean we know everything. Understand that, even early in your career, you can have something to offer and should seek mentors and coaches who are as open to your input as you are to theirs.

“OPPORTUNITIES ARE LIKE SUNRISES. IF YOU WAIT TOO LONG, YOU MISS THEM.” The definition of success is very complex; it is a combination of different factors and situations, which all together create the perfect environment for innovation and growth no matter where you are in life. Opportunity favors the well-prepared, the ones, who can recognize it, even when it looks like a problem, difficulty or even a disastrous situation. It can come along when you’re down and discouraged, when you least expect it. To attract it, you have to open yourself up to the idea of the possibility first. Nothing feels better than experiencing a new level of success through an opportunity that pushes you forward to a new way of believing.and a new way of life.

It’s all about connecting new ways of doing to improved results. Results are the reinforcement loop for any new cultural attribute to form. Beliefs may shift as collective new ways of doing help achieve a better result. Yes, culture change may happen far down the road but initially the focus is on navigating common cultural challenges to collectively achieve results with new or more consistent behavior. Focus on what works, what didn’t and why because culture is created and evolves through shared learning and mutual experience (Ed Schein).

Culture change is a broad and deep subject and a helpful start is learning about behavior change and mindset change at the individual, group, and organizational level in addition to social / environmental factors. Also, learning about systems theory and wholistic change. Getting some solid theoretical understanding of adult learning, systems theory, behavior and mindset change is helpful. Learning how to support sustainable change is important as well and how a solid communication plan is an important part of change. Early in career it would be helpful to get some educational background on these core concepts to learn the models and then gain practical experience by being on a team that is supporting a cultural change effort.