Corporate Culture Change:

Changing Corporate Culture to Align People and Profits

by Debra Lea Thorsen www.culturebuilders.com

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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About the Author

Debra Lea Thorsen has been consulting to and coaching organizations and executives for over 10 years. Debra Lea founded Culture Builders in 1999 to help build healthy and profitable organizational cultures. She specializes in helping organizations ensure that their purpose and core values are integrated into the thought-processes, conversations, and actions of the employees. Debra works with integrity and authenticity to provide culture coaching and executive coaching of the highest quality. Her client testimonials, education, and work experience assure the quality of her coaching services. Brief Professional History: MBA from Carnegie Mellon University, concentration in finance BA from the University of Virginia, dual majors in Cultural Anthropology and Foreign Relations Certified Personal and Professional Coach (CPPC) of the Newfield Network. (www.newfieldnetwork.com), one of the oldest coaching schools in the country, and an International Coaching Federation (ICF) certified training program. Certified Consultant of Workforce Solutions (www.workforceinc.com) certified to administer and coach around Values-Centered Assessments (VCAS) including the Advanced Management Assessment, Basic Management Assessment, and Personal Pathfinder Assessment. Founder and former CEO of Boomerang, an internet-based distribution company. Partial Client List: Debra has worked with managers and executives from: IBM Xerox Marriott Volvo AT&T University of California San Diego (UCSD) Medical Group The Newfield Network MarketBridge Integrated Change Strategies Provide Commerce SMS.ac!

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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Definition of Corporate Culture

Culture: n 1. an energy field that is created whenever a group of people come together to collaborate; 2. foundation for all decisions and actions within an organization; 3. the way things are around here The easiest way to think of corporate culture is that it is an energy field that determines how people think, act, and view the world around them. I often compare culture to electricity. Culture is powerful and invisible and its effects are far reaching. Culture is an energy force that becomes woven through the thinking, behavior, and identity of those within the group. Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture is created. This group of people could be a family, neighborhood, project team, or company. Culture is automatically created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of the people in the group. I have worked with founders and venture capitalists involved in the start-up of technology companies. Many of them say that they want to work on the corporate culture once the company is profitable or in the black. And I tell them that it will be much more difficult to change the corporate culture once it has emerged than to proactively create the corporate culture they want from the beginning. Corporate culture is created naturally and automatically.

Understanding Corporate Culture

Many people confuse corporate culture with a companys vision or mission or values. Corporate culture is actually the container for the vision, mission and values. It is not synonymous with them. The corporate culture energy field determines a companys dress code, work environment, work hours, rules for getting ahead and getting promoted, how the business world is viewed, what is valued, who is valued, and much more. Every company or organizations has numerous corporate cultures. For example, the marketing department and the engineering department may have very different corporate cultures that are both influenced by the overall organizational corporate culture. Many times these two sub-cultures clash. Corporate culture shows up in both visible and invisible ways. Some expressions of corporate culture are easy to observe. You can see the dress code, work environment, perks, and titles in a company. This is the surface layer of culture. These are only some of the visible manifestations of a culture.

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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Surface Layer of Corporate Culture: Visible Expressions

Dress Code Work Environment Benefits Perks Conversations Work/Life Balance Titles & Job Descriptions Organizational Structure Relationships

The far more powerful aspects of corporate culture are invisible. The cultural core is composed of the beliefs, values, standards, paradigms, worldviews, moods, internal conversations, and private conversations of the people that are part of the group. This is the foundation for all actions and decisions within a team, department, or organization. Core Layer of Corporate Culture: Invisible Manifestations

Values Private Conversations (with self or confidants) Invisible Rules Attitudes Beliefs Worldviews Moods and Emotions Unconscious Interpretations Standards Paradigms Assumptions

Business leaders often assume that their company's vision, values, and strategic priorities are synonymous with their company's culture. Unfortunately, too often, the vision, values, and strategic priorities may only be words hanging on a plaque on the wall. In a thriving profitable company, employees will embody the values, vision, and strategic priorities of their company. What creates this embodiment (or lack of embodiment) is the corporate culture energy field that permeates the employees' psyches, bodies, conversations, and actions.

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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Changing Corporate Culture

If you are faced with the prospect of a large corporate culture change you may feel overwhelmed at the enormity of this project. Relax. Corporate culture change is possible and can be quite simple if you focus on the small, daily actions and conversations that are required to change corporate culture. The energy fields that make up corporate culture are dynamic and change continuously. Corporate culture is created and constantly reinforced on a daily basis through conversations, symbols, rituals, written materials, and body language. It is the small, mundane actions and behaviors that create a corporate culture and can shift a corporate culture. Since a culture is created every time a group of people come together to form a team, a company will have many sub-cultures that exist within its main culture. For example, the marketing and technology teams may have different worldviews, jargon, work hours, and ways to do things. A big challenge for today's company is to create a strong, cohesive corporate culture that pulls all of the sub-cultures together and ensures that they can work as a unified team. Creating and sustaining a healthy, vibrant culture requires reinforcement of the culture through daily and proactive conversations and communications. The failure to discuss the values, purpose, and rules within a group often leads to a culture that is at cross purposes with the stated intention of the group. Poor communication creates a lot of confusion and often a crisis of meaninglessness. Most companies try to "fix" perceived problems by addressing the parts of the corporate culture that are easy to see. Some quick-fixes include holding Friday TGIF parties and company picnics or adding fringe benefits and perks. None of these actions will have a powerful or lasting effect on a company's culture. I have developed a powerful, effective and proven process for changing corporate culture. Step 1: Declare Ownership. It is important that a corporate culture change project be owned by an internal stakeholder. This internal stakeholder can be the Human Resources department, the Chief Operating Officer, or whoever is best suited with the organization to own the initiative and has the power to ensure its success. What is important is that ownership resides within the organization and is not held by an outside consultant. With ownership comes accountability and responsibility.

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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Step 2: Educate the Leadership Team and Management Team Since there is so much confusion about corporate culture and what it really is, the next step is to spend the time to educate key stakeholders about corporate culture and gain their support of the corporate culture change effort. Members of the leadership team may feel threatened by any proposed corporate culture change because they may have benefited from the current culture. Corporate culture building can be learned, but it takes an honest commitment from the leadership team of an organization. Step 3: Diagnose your Current Culture There are many ways to assess your current culture including interviews with employees, an employee survey, and having a Culture Coach spend a few days at your organization. For a complete diagnosis, I recommend doing all three assessments. Step 4: Leadership Coaching. The CEO and leadership team of a company have a powerful impact on corporate culture through their conversations and behaviors. Unfortunately, most business leaders receive little to no education on how to have powerful conversations that generate corporate culture. Business leaders can pro-actively create a thriving corporate culture by understanding what culture is (and is not) and learning how to have fundamental business conversations that will create the corporate culture that they desire. Step 5: Feedback Loop. You will want to do Step 3 again either every quarter, every 6 months or every year depending upon the size of your organization and the scope of your corporate culture change initiative. Creating a healthy and profitable corporate culture is an ongoing process, not an event.

Summary
Corporate culture change is both complex and simple. Once you really understand the visible effects and invisible manifestations of corporate culture, you can create a plan for shifting the corporate culture. The most powerful means to do this is to diagnose your current culture and then coach your leadership team on how to have conversations and how to behave in alignment with the corporate culture that you are striving to create.

Next Steps
By hiring a Corporate Culture Coach to support your efforts, you can improve your results and the accelerate the speed of your corporate culture change. Below are several ways that Culture Builders can support your efforts.

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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Educating Key Stakeholders: This critical second step is best performed by the internal owners of the corporate culture change. If done by an outside consultant or coach, then the leadership team will assign the power and expertise to this outside person. Debra Lea can coach and support the internal owners in this important second step by answering any questions that arise and helping to develop presentations that are customized to an individual company. Diagnosing Corporate Culture: The most powerful and accurate way to diagnose corporate culture is by using both quantitative and qualitative tools. Culture Builders has developed a comprehensive Corporate Culture Survey that is divided into 10 key sections and contains 97 questions. This proprietary survey contains both quantitative elements and qualitative questions. Culture Builders specializes in conducting an Onsite Corporate Culture Assessment that results in a detailed State of the Company report. This assessment includes confidential interviews with employees of an organization. This provides extremely beneficial information often anecdotally to support or contrast with the results of the survey. Case Study: Culture Builders helped Market Bridge achieve a 38% annual growth rate by conducting the Corporate Culture Survey in combination with an Onsite Corporate Culture Assessment and Visioning Workshops. Read the complete project overview. Leadership Coaching: Debra Lea Thorsen offers individual executive coaching and group leadership development coaching. It may be tempting to skip this important step, especially if you sense resistance from some of the powers-that-be. But if you cannot gain the buy-in and support of the leadership team, then you will be wasting your time and money on any culture change They must be willing to change any attitudes and behaviors that are contrary to the corporate culture you are trying to create. This piece is critical. Ongoing Support If you would like further support in your corporate culture change effort, please contact Chief Culture Builder, Debra Lea Thorsen, via email at debra@culturebuilders.com or phone at 828-329-5138.

Debra Lea Thorsen 2005

www.culturebuilders.com

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