lGet your culture right: Cultivating a high performance organisation

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The organisation is built around how good their culture is. In organisational strategy, the plans and missions of a company can easily be reused by other companies, its strategies can be stolen and values replicated, but culture is the only aspect that cannot be copied. Culture remains an innate feature of the company that belongs to it alone, culture cannot be replicated.

You have to analyse organisational culture and get it working for you – make your culture have a positive impact on your organisation’s journey and drive your corporate strategy. High performing organisations spend a lot of time and money analysing and formulating their company culture, making sure it is not an obstacle but a facilitator of corporate strategy.

To start with, you have to perform a “culture diagnostic”. You have to first perform organised focus group discussions with your people and utilise questionnaires to try and gain first hand perspective of what your culture is. You have to ask questions like “what makes us innovative?” and “why do our customers like us?” – They are questions which prompt cognitive analysis and better understanding.

When culture is understood and documented, analyse what the best culture would be for your company and your corporate strategy and perform a gap analysis of the existing and desired culture. A start-up would focus on innovation, learning and relationship building; a company seeking growth will have an achievement-oriented spirit.

Leaders in organisations must not let the culture sway away from what drives the corporate strategy. Culture should be inculcated into employee orientation programmes, handbooks and other internal material, so that when new employees join the organisation they have a good idea of how they should act and what is expected of them.

In essence, cultural change is a delicate process; it should be done with care, ensuring employees do not reject change. Using change management principles will always help.

Source: forbes.com
Source: http://www.navigossearch.com