Being a Force for Change to Develop a Growth Culture

As the new year unfolds, it's the perfect time for Growth Leaders to reflect on the past and set a?clear vision for the future.?

This is integral to driving growth within an organisation; a compelling vision that incorporates continuous improvement and growth will contribute to fostering an organisational culture based on bold values such as courage and entrepreneurship. Such a culture embraces change, empowering individuals and teams to adapt and respond to challenges that are growth opportunities.?

But culture is not built overnight. There’s no light switch you can flip to make people pay attention and internalise your vision instantly. That’s why effectively communicating the vision is paramount to success. That means communicating with high transparency to minimise resistance to change and build employee trust. Additionally, it’s essential not to look at communication as giving a single speech or pep-talk; instead, it must be repeated and included in training, milestone celebrations, and other regular communications. Overtime, this will concretise the vision and institutionalise change, making growth a permanent part of your organisational culture.?

Another crucial element for driving growth is engaging stakeholders, particularly those within your organisation. One critical method to involve stakeholders is to build a coalition of strong supporters who can positively influence the broader organisation. As a best-in-class Growth Leader, you do this early in the process when you are still finetuning the vision?to ensure their involvement matures into engagement.

How to Drive Growth?(aka Change)?

I highly recommend following three frameworks to guide this growth process. The first is Tuckman and O'Reilly's framework I like to lean on. This approach concentrates on developing an understanding of strategy and the role of the executive leadership as an influence on the culture, the formal organisation, the people and all the critical tasks. It also helps to map dependencies, requirements, and dynamics around these topics. It can be used to draft the ideal state or for an as-is and to-be design.

The second framework is Kotter's 8-Step Change model. This is the ideal flow of how to roll out a change within an organisation. It works to instil a sense of urgency, establish a guiding coalition, formulate a vision and strategy, effectively communicate it, and empower employees to act on the vision. This will, ideally, lead to?achieving some short-term wins, from which you can consolidate gains and produce more change, ultimately anchoring new approaches firmly within the organisational culture.?This is not a one-way direction but might require different iterations on some steps.?

Finally, ADKAR, which focuses on Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement, can help you assess and understand whether employees recognise the need for change, desire it, which means they value “what’s in it for them”, have the knowledge and ability to implement it, and whether the change is being reinforced with for instance aftercare.

To bring all these frameworks and approaches together and to make them work, it’s essential to build a comprehensive change plan that includes a communication plan, a coaching plan, a training plan, and a reinforcement plan.

Ultimately, to be a force for growth for your organisation, it is essential to cultivate a growth culture anchored in values and a compelling vision that’s clearly and regularly communicated. With thoughtful planning and execution, you can successfully foster change within your organisation, ensuring that growth becomes a permanent part of the organisational DNA.?

How do you drive Growth?

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I help Entrepreneurs and Executives to be(come) Growth Leaders. They become less stressed, feel at ease when?leading their people and have more fun doing so.

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