In a previous article, we described how organizational culture influences behavior, performance, and results. In every organization, people have beliefs and values that define their reality. These beliefs and values shape attitudes, which in turn drive behaviors we actually observe. In that article, we gave examples of ways culture can sabotage achieving the goals of important initiatives. We also gave examples of common cultural patterns – Career Builders (“I’d better do it or someone else will ;”) Turf Protectors (“whatever it is if it touches my turf it can’t be good ;”) Vince Lombardis (“win at all costs ;”) and NIH Experts (“if we didn’t Invent It Here, it can’t be any good.”) Finally, we described three steps to shift culture from negative to positive: increasing awareness, creating alternatives, and making & keeping promises.
Your reaction to these three steps might be “easy to say, but how do you actually go about doing this?” This article describes a workshop model we have used to cultivate culture change. Culture does not change quickly. However, sometimes a critical mass is frustrated with current culture and knows it has to change for the organization to survive or grow. In these cases, the Culture Pyramid Workshop can help foster the necessary changes.
