change, changing organization culture is critical, but practical information for those of us in middle management who have to make it happen is lacking.
As a result of my investigation, I found the same motivation for this book as I did for my last book. What I have tried to create in the chapters that follow is a book designed for those of us in middle management who are faced with the day-to-day task of implementing successful change; we need to understand how to change culture so that the initiatives that we are being asked to implement are not only successful at the outset, but provide long-lasting change for the business.
The goal of this book is to show you how to change the culture in order to promote readiness, sustainability, and ultimate success for whatever initiative you are rolling out to the organization.
Changing the organization’s culture in order to promote long-lasting change benefits everyone from the top of the organization to the bottom. It benefits the top by providing a solid foundation on which to build new concepts, behaviors, and ways of thinking about work. To accomplish radical changes in how we think about or execute our work requires that those who are part of the culture support it. Senior management can only take this so far. They can set and communicate the vision and they can visibly support the effort, but the most important thing they can do is empower those in the middle to make it happen.
As middle managers, we all know that we have many more initiatives on which to work than there is time in the day (or night). This spreads our focus. If we don’t collectively embrace the new change, then no threat, benefit or any other motivational technique will make the change successful over the long term. Although this book can help educate senior management so that they can empower the rest of us, its real benefit is for middle managers. It will help them understand this very complex concept in a way that will enable them to deliver successful change initiatives.
Just as with Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, I have been unable to find a book that I believe adequately explains the concept of organizational culture to those of us in the middle who are asked to change it. This book provides middle managers with “how to” guidance for cultural change,” targeting reliability improvement.
There is also benefit for those at the bottom tier of the management hierarchy. The term bottom is not meant to demean this roll because this is where the “rubber meets the road.” All cultural change and their related initiatives end here. This is where all of the plans, training, and actual work to implement end. If it doesn’t work here – failure is the outcome. The benefit of this book for you is that this book, unlike any other out there on the market, explains the concepts of cultural change in a manner that is clearly understandable and applicable to the difficult task you have in front of you every day.
1.4 Why Is This Book Different?
When I first heard the expression organizational culture, I had no idea what it meant. What I later learned was that the people telling me that we had to “change the organization’s culture” were not completely sure either. They sensed that, in addition to the skills we were trying to impart and the processes we are trying to change, there was something more basic that, if not addressed, had the potential to impede or even totally destroy what we were trying to accomplish.
The problem was that we were not entirely clear on what that something actually was, yet we knew it was there. As I did more research and questioning of others, I became convinced that people are very much aware of this key ingredient, yet most are not sure how to define it and get their arms around it. There is a general lack of clarity about the concept of cultural change, what is involved to successfully accomplish it, and what parts need to be addressed if one is to be successful.
This book will demystify the concept of cultural change. It will explain organizational culture in a way that will make the concept clear to everyone. As a result, it will enable people to know what to ask for, what to do, and how to implement changes to the very fabric of the organization for sustainable improvement over the long haul.
The book is unique not only in that it makes a complex process easily understood, but it also brings into the equation the eight elements of change and shows how they relate to and support the concept.
To add one other benefit, this book is focused on a specific aspect of change in the work place, namely equipment reliability. There are many books on this subject, but none that tie the concept of cultural change to that of improving reliability of plant equipment.
If you have read my book Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, you will recall that there are many topics that I addressed in detail such as vision, the Goal Achievement Model, outcomes and impacts, and a methodology for portraying the health of your change process through The Web of Change. All of these topics are pertinent to the study of cultural change; although I will reference them, I will refer you to my previous book for the details.
Also in Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, I discussed the eight elements of change. Each of these – leadership, work process, structure, group learning, technology, communication, interrelationships, and rewards – is important in its own right, but collectively they are even more important in how they relate to one another. In my prior book, all eight elements were addressed in two chapters. This was the short version, but it served to help the reader understand the concept and the connectivity between the elements. In this book, as you will see in the chapter synopsis below, I have addressed each of the elements in its own chapter and will tie them closely to the theme of this book – organization culture and cultural change.
I will also provide you with a tool, The Cultural Web of Change, to assess the progress you are making towards changing the culture of your organization. In this way you will be able to identify the gaps. Then using Change Root Cause Failure Analysis (C-RCFA), you will be able to take corrective action to get your process back on track. This tool will be described in Chapter 17 and is included on the CD at the back of the book.
In addition, the CD contains a file (with voice) providing the reader with an oversight of the topic and material contained in the text. This presentation will help you and those within your company get an initial understanding of the content.
The chapters that follow should prove to be interesting and enlightening. They will include real examples of my own and those of key individuals with whom I discussed this topic so you can get a broader perspective on the issues.
Chapter 1 Getting Started
This chapter opens up the topic of organizational culture as it relates to plant reliability. In Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide. I discussed the eight elements of change. This book takes the next step and introduces the glue that binds the eight elements together – culture.
Chapter 2 Culture Defined
The first step towards understanding culture is to define it. This chapter does just that and introduces the four elements of culture – values, role models, rites and rituals, and cultural infrastructure. These will each be addressed separately in Chapters 4 through 7.
