Chapter 3 The Need for Vision and Goals
Equally important in the study of culture are the concepts of vision and goals. The vision sets the overall strategic direction that the firm intends to pursue over the long haul. The goals, or in our case the Goal Achievement Model, is how you get from where you are to where you want to be. These two concepts are foundational and are what an organization’s cultural change process is built upon.
Chapter 4 Organizational Values
Organizational values are how a company communicates to its employees what is important. It enables the workforce to be able to make the right decisions when faced with a number of choices. This chapter provides clarity to this topic.
Chapter 5 Role Models
In the area of work performance, what gets measured gets done. The same maxim applies to human behavior. In this case, how the boss or senior management behaves gets modeled or replicated by those in the organization. Role models are a critical aspect of culture. In changing a culture, specific behaviors need to be instilled in the organization. Because we know that people model behavior of the leadership, these individuals play a crucial role in promulgating the new and specific cultural behaviors.
Chapter 6 Rites and Rituals
Rites and rituals are the third major component of organizational culture. They are two separate concepts but ones that reinforce each other. As defined by Deal and Kennedy in their landmark text Corporate Cultures, rituals are how things are done, not just the major things, but all things. Rituals communicate to everyone the accepted behavior within the context of a company culture. Rituals can even exist at the sub-culture level, but they provide the same level of employee behavioral guidance. Understanding rituals is the key to understanding how to change them.
Rites, the second component, are how the company reinforces acceptable behavior. A grasp of both of these and how they support one another is a good first step towards cultural change.
Chapter 7 Cultural Infrastructure
This chapter introduces a very important concept in the review of organizational culture. The cultural infrastructure is an invisible set of processes that help to shape organizational behavior and communication. If you don’t understand and pay attention to these forces, you will discover that changes you want to institute take a lot longer than expected and some, in spite of all of your efforts, do not get done at all
Chapter 8 Introduction to the Elements
This chapter bridges the discussion in my last book, Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide and the more detailed and culturally focused discussion of these elements in this book. The eight elements are the same, but this book will explore each in more depth and focus on how they individually and collectively support cultural change.
Chapter 9 Leadership
Leadership is the most important of the eight elements. Chapter 9 is written in two major parts. Part 1 provides you with a broad understanding of the term leadership and how it is applied. Part 2 focuses on leadership as a critical part of the eight elements of change and how it impacts the four elements of culture.
Chapter 10 - Work Process
Work process has actually has three parts – information flow, the actual flow of work, and the flow of materials in a company. The first of these three components will be addressed in the chapter on communication. The third will not be a topic in this text because it ties more closely to a text on logistics. However the second component is key to cultural change. The reason for this is that, in many ways, the processes associated with doing work differently are exactly what cultural change is all about. This chapter will discuss ways to change culture by changing the work process.
Chapter 11 - Structure
How organizations are structured is often the difference between success and failure. Structure defines in many ways how things get accomplished. Reporting relationships and how functions are tied together are very important in changing a culture. This chapter looks at structure with a cultural focus and shows how to support change by the proper structural alignment.
Chapter 12 - Group Learning
One aspect of successful cultural change is tied to how we develop goals and initiatives, how we work to accomplish them, and most importantly how we learn from our outcomes and then re-apply what we learn to enhance our future work efforts. Nothing in the world of change happens linearly. We execute, review the outcome, and then make adjustments. This chapter will explore both single and double loop learning as it relates to cultural change.
Chapter 13 - Technology
In our case, technology applies to software applications that support work processes. In the maintenance and reliability arena, these applications usually are the computerized maintenance management systems and others that support the process. Technology in this context is an integral part of the cultural infrastructure by supporting or not supporting how things get done. Technology also plays an important supporting part in the organization’s business rituals.
Chapter 14 – Communication
This chapter addresses how information flows throughout the organization. This is important because work can not be accomplished successfully without proper communication. Neither can any change in organizational culture. Communication is the heart of the matter; without it, a culture can not be altered.
Chapter 15 - Interrelationships
Like communications, interrelationships help or hinder how things are accomplished in business. This element touches all four parts of the cultural model. Our discussion in this chapter will deal with understanding interrelationships and being able to apply this understanding to changing culture.
Chapter 16 - Rewards
Everyone knows that what gets measured gets done. How we reward what gets done is equally important. If we measure to get people to pay attention to specific outcomes and then reward or reinforce appropriately, we will have increased the likelihood of these new behaviors continuing. Conversely, inappropriate rewards can have the exact opposite effect.
Chapter 17 The Web of Cultural Change
This chapter describes and explains the use of the cultural web model. This web diagram has the same spokes as that used in Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide. However, it is focused on the cultural aspects of the eight elements. The questions to complete the web diagram will be in the appendix and on the CD provided at the back of the book
Chapter 18 Assessment and Corrective Action
Having taken the cultural web survey and developed the diagram is only the first step. To successfully alter the culture the reader needs to conduct a cultural root cause failure analysis (C-RCFA). This will identify areas for improvement in multiple elements of the web and position the reader to make the necessary changes. This chapter will explain
