Understand the Culture - but don't be Seduced by it.

ABC Company had recently run a massive cultural change campaign in which desired behaviours and values were rolled out. It included several in-house workshops and off-site activities. Almost all of the employees were trained including the senior executives.

The top leadership might have marked check against this objective for the year. Now, they would all expect employees to show such behaviours at their workplace. They also expect, whatever decision people make, should be aligned by newly rolled out values.

Right after the campaign month, Ricky, who works at ABC company, applies for a leave to attend a Parent Teacher Meeting at his son’s school. It does not get approved. He then tries to apply for remote working day as per flexible hours policy but had no luck.

One of the values recently rolled out to the masses was ‘TRUST’.

Do you think that your people would really live with those values & behaviours rolled out during cultural change campaign after feeling not being trusted by their managers and peers? Not at all.

If you are going through a process of culture change, you need to do your homework first. Try connecting with people who will tell you stories about unwritten rules and “how we do things around here”.

If your people managers don’t walk & talk around the same values that you expect your people to abide by, organization would never be able to do it and you will be back to square one.

I would leave it till here as a thought to ponder upon..