Change Impacts Culture

By John A. Haas
Management Strategies Group

The U.S. business landscape constantly and rapidly changes. Mergers, acquisitions, new product or service introductions, expansion, contraction, technological improvements, competitive forces, etc. all require re-thinking organizational structures and management processes. They also affect an organization's culture.

Major organizational changes have an impact that goes way beyond changes to staff, systems, procedures or staffing levels. Even with excellent communications about the changes (which rarely happens!), managers and other employees in and around the directly impacted units perceive both the fact and likely consequences of change very differently. Some will resist the changes, some embrace them, many take a wait-and-see attitude and some may even try to sabotage them. These perceptions and attitudes are reflected in actions, which define the multiple impacts on the organization's culture.

In spite of recent efforts to create cross-functional "highly effective teams," apparently the old "silo" mentality persists, especially when people are faced with major change.

An Interesting AMA Study

Globe reporter Diane Lewis recently wrote about an American Management Association study that found 81% of 493 executives surveyed believe that "negative attitudes of departmental and unit managers lead to friction between departments, causing their staffs to work in isolation rather than cooperatively." 60% of respondents blame isolationism on their companies' corporate culture.

My sense is that, under real or perceived pressure to "do a good job," many managers focus on those things they can directly control (i.e. their unit's activities), which translates into greater isolationism. The AMA study reports that 74% mentioned turf wars between managers; 72% saw lack of cooperation among workers, 60% perceived power struggles, and 51% saw personality conflicts as the cause.

What's To Be Done?

Clarifying corporate and unit objectives and communication from the top about the importance of collaboration are agreed to be part of the solution. In addition, 66% said companies should consciously encourage and reward collaboration, 64% said companies should create more opportunities to collaborate and 59% said team projects require clear goals.

Through its actions and words, senior management largely determines and shapes an organization's culture. They can create a more vibrant, vital culture by involving employees and giving them a stake in successfully implementing change.

One of the major lessons from this study is that the process of introducing change provides a great opportunity to shape corporate culture, which is perhaps the most essential factor in realizing the originally intended benefits of change.

Fall 2003 -Volume 13, Number 4

All articles are copyrighted by the authors in the year published.