The role of culture in adopting change

Companies introduce new IT systems to increase productivity, strengthen compliance, and in general, keep up with the times and the competition.? While these changes are desirable for the company and essential for its growth, the changes the new systems require for employees can be hard for them to adopt. People get used to doing things or working with systems, and change can create anxiety and lead to resistance when it directly requires new skills to be learned or affects how they do their job.?

The McKinsey survey of global executives highlighted three digital-culture deficiencies: fear of taking risks, functional and departmental silos, and difficulty forming and acting on a single customer view. These three deficiencies are often commonplace even in technology-focused companies or IT departments within companies of other industries.?

Digital transformation and cloud adoption can enable significant improvements in customer experience, how efficiently a company operates, and enhance employee experience.? However, for the adoption of new technologies like the cloud, companies must be prepared to address a change in their skills and even cultures. Individual and corporate culture play a significant role in the success of the digital transformation.? Leaders will have to question why some companies are more successful in embracing changes while others struggle.?

Here is how leaders and managers can help departments and teams will have to incrementally embrace change by moving a few elements at a time:

Role of External (National) Culture

As a result of globalization, the corporate world is becoming more multicultural. People from different ethnic groups and backgrounds work and collaborate across the globe without giving up their own identities, values, and beliefs.

Even though diversity makes a company more robust and dynamic, today’s diverse cross-cultural communication can be challenging since every culture has its own assumptions and values that define relationships. When it comes to business relationships, people in the West tend to focus primarily on a given topic at hand at meetings.? In contrast, people in the East tend to put greater importance on what the interactions and outcome means in their complex relationships surrounding the stakeholders.? There are also differences in the perception of leadership styles. Eastern cultures tend to operate within a traditional hierarchical structure where age and title, among other criteria heavily influences the interaction, whereas Western cultures are more egalitarian in relative terms. This emphasis on relationships and hierarchies in Eastern cultures sometimes makes changes more complex and challenging to pass along efficiently. On the other hand, a western employer might be more open to change as they value experience over age like in eastern cultures. These differences in cultures and how things are interpreted is why change can sometimes be hard to implement. Being aware of these biases and tendencies can allow for a much smoother transition.??

Role of Internal Culture?

According to a study by MIT, 63% of managers believe that technological change in their workplaces is too slow, primarily because of poor communication about the strategic benefits of new tools. The most prominent challenge organizations face to implementing new technologies is the resistance encountered by employees. Change is not about implementing rules and enforcing them. Instead, organizations have to encourage a culture of connection and collaboration. Every employee must understand the organizational objectives behind the change and get a clear idea of how to bring that change to reality.?

Employees in a company must have faith that the quality of their job will improve due to increased automation. You must foster an environment where employees feel safe and valued enough to speak up when they notice something amiss and offer their input about what needs improvement. This would lead to a more positive change experience and create a more cohesive workforce that will innovate together and share their ideas for improvement.?

The Connection Between Culture and Cloud

In 2021, 53% of medium-sized enterprises used cloud computing compared to 46% in 2020. More and more small and medium-sized businesses are considering shifting to cloud computing technology to increase competitiveness and optimize operational costs. However, companies can reap the benefits of cloud technology only when their employees are open-minded to trying new things and breaking out of functional and departmental silos.

Cloud helps companies become more agile, cohesive, productive, and resilient than ever before, allowing them to create new digital services that can push ahead of competitors and serve fantastic customers experience. 94% of entrepreneurs and 88% of job seekers say that healthy workplace culture is vital for success. You need to encourage a culture of constant learning, relentless obsessions to improve customer experience by applying the new learning.

The physical and virtual space will become a collaboration and connection space rather than a 'work and leave' one. To be successful in the cloud, you need so much more than an agreement to adopt cloud technologies. The bulk of your successful strategy will come down to your company culture and willingness to shift to a NoOps mentality. NoOps means there's no operations team. Instead, the entire engineering team works together seamlessly with the business to deploy all the way through to production. To be successful in the cloud and build a thriving innovation culture, IT can't lead the charge alone. According to a survey by PwC, 84% of respondents believe culture is critically important. However, a far smaller percentage (less than half) believe their companies do an excellent managing culture.

The companies on Fortune's list of the best places to work are known for their strong cultures. Interestingly, their stock performance is double that of other organizations—their culture, beliefs, and behaviour influence how people act. Digital transformation and cloud adoption can accelerate a company’s innovative capabilities, as well as provide agility, scalability, and resilience necessary to successfully navigate the unpredictable and quickly changing industry dynamics.? The critical success factor for successful digital transformation and adoption of cloud technology is their internal culture.?