How to Lead Culture Building

 Culture building is a much better way to think about this process: It’s about creating alignment that connects people and performance, to growth and profitability. Clarity for how the organization can WIN, ignites people!  When you apply a clear process and manage culture as a business capability in the right ways, it unleashes a wave of passion and engagement. 

Our Culture Builder Toolkit is a revolutionary approach to working with culture, where culture is treated as an evolutionary process, of connecting the dots from those performing on the front lines, to the realities and demands leaders face in a global, fast-paced business world. 

 In this article, you will learn the stages and framework of culture building from the Culture Builder Toolkit: 

These 4 stages emerged as the most clear way to define and track cultural change and culture building with our clients. 

In each of the 4 stages, there are steps you must take to ensure that you are properly embedding the process in way that ensures sustainability.

Steps in Assessment – Preparing for Change

1. Assess Change Readiness
2. Assess the Organizational Culture
3. Share Results with the Senior Team
4. Share Results with Participants
5. Pinpoint Key Behaviors & Culture Habit (Next Blog: 5 Habits every company needs)
6. Frequency of Change Monitoring

Steps in Awareness – Creating Urgency for Change

1. Establish Urgency
2. Clarify Direction
3. Revisit Your Culture Habits
4. Build The Story of Change (Using our 5-Question Process) 
5. Cascade Dialogue Sessions to Create Urgency and Engage People

Steps in Alignment – Getting People Moving Toward a Common Direction

1. Sponsor Culture Building
2. Define Responsibilities in Culture Building – Who does what? (CEO, HR, Change Leaders)
3. Recruit & Organize Change Leaders.
4. Implement a Communication Strategy.
5. Implement Culture Habit #2 : Foster trust- based communication in all interactions 
6. Working with Mindsets

Steps in Adaptability – The capability for ongoing change

1. The Case for Adaptability
2. Implement Shortcut Habits 3, 4, and 5:
   • Faster, better decision making
   • Relentlessly pursue role clarity
   • Improve customer focus
3. Facilitate Two Conversations using Change Leaders:
   • Recovering from reorganization
   • We are masters of our destiny
   • Develop Mindsets of Learning & Personal Resiliency

You can get complete step-by-step how-to’s and instructions for implementing each of these steps in our Culture Builder Toolkit.

One more important note on how to lead culture building: You must address the HUMAN element of change – 3 focus areas to ensure you don’t active people’s innate Change Resistance:

1. Make the process make sense, based on human motivation factors (change management)
2. Ensure leaders are role models, are passionate, visible, and doing what it takes to create buy-in (change leadership)
3. Teach leaders how to navigate loss, stress, and create strong personal resiliency.

With proper tools any leaders can improve the fundamentals of their workplace, starting immediately.  When you lead culture using these 4 stages and the 3 focus areas for the human element of change, it becomes a powerful conversation across the organization that directly impacts productivity, performance, and profitability.

Believe it!