Organization Culture & Change

 

Organizational culture

Organizational or corporate culture is the pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions that may not have been articulated but shapes the way in which people behave and things get done. Norms are unwritten rules and behaviors.

In a very simple way, we can say the culture of an organization is the typical way of doing things in the organization. It particularly relates to the behavior pattern and the relationship. The culture of an organization develops as an evolution of a long time. It is normally created by the people who work in the organization both the managers and the workforce.

So this framework for analyzing organization should be developed in a manner considering on above-said ideas of the organizational culture.

There seems to be a wide range of agreement that organizational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held members that distinguish the organization from other organizations. This system of shared meaning is, on closer examination, a set of key elements that in aggregate capture the essence of and organization’s culture.

These elements are the core of the framework that can use to analyze the organizational culture. Those are as follows.

Innovations and risk taking – The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take a risk.

Attention to detail – The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail.

Result Orientation – The degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve those outcomes.

People Orientation – The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organization.

Team Orientation – The degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals

Aggressiveness – The degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing.

Stability – The degree to which organizational activities emphasize maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth

Each of these elements exists on a continuum from low to high. Appraising the organization on these seven characteristics of the elements and then gives a composite picture of the organization’s culture.

Explanation on internal and external factors that influence organizational culture to Management Practices

Internal Factors

The actions of Top Management – The actions of the top management also have major impact on the organization’s culture. Through what they say and how they behave, senior executives establish norms that filter down through the organizations as to whether risk taking is desirable, how much freedom managers should give their employees, what is appropriate dress, what action will pay off in terms of pay raises, promotions and other rewards.

Human resources Practices – Once culture is in place there are practices within the organization that act to maintain it by giving employees a set of experience. For example many of the human resources practices reinforce the organization’s culture. The section process, performance evaluation criteria, training career development activities, the promotions procedures ensure that those hired people fit in with the culture.

Socialization – No matter how good a job the organization does in recruiting and selection, new employees are not fully indoctrinated in the organizations culture. May be most important because they are unfamiliar with the organization’s culture, new employees are potentially likely to disturb the beliefs and customs that are in place. The organizations will, therefore, want to help new employees adapt to its culture. This adaptation process is called as Socialization.

External Factors

The context of Community – The people have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of the community. This matter has two sides one is community as an external factor how look at the organization and the other hand employees also come from that community that will affect to the internal factors also. Organizations that promote a spiritual culture recognize that people have both a mind and a spirit seek to find meaning and purpose in their work, and desire to connect with other human beings and be part of a community.

Government Rules and Regulations – This is also having another high effect on organizational culture. Especially in areas like how to treat for the employees, regulations o customer relations and like that the government rules and regulations also may have an effect on an organization’s culture.

National Culture – it is needed to take into account if accurate predictions are to be made about organizational behavior in different countries. But does national culture override the organization’s culture? Is an IBM facility in Germany, for example, more likely to reflect German ethic culture or IBM’s corporate culture? This example should be taken in to account to national culture override the organization’s culture.

 

Change Management Process

The change management process is one of the basic skills in that most Managers and leaders need to be competent in their management process. There are very few working environments where change management is not important and not implemented.

there are five main philosophies which need to be remembered

1. Various people respond to various ways to change.
2. Everybody has basic needs that have to be fulfilled.
3. Changes regularly involve a loss, and people go through the “loss curve”.
4. Anticipation needs to be managed rationally.
5. Fears have to be dealing with changes.

Some techniques in the change management practitioner’s belt are well known in the business and trade press. The effective organizational change in their implementation and realization have required the introduction of lean manufacturing, 360° feedback, executive coaches, six sigma, CRM, just-in-time supply and manufacturing processes such as kanban and kaizen, Total Quality Management, or enterprise applications such as SAP, and etc

Importance (Objectives)of Change Management to the Organization

1. To allow changes while, at the same time, maintaining or improving service stability and availability.

2. To increase the probability of change process success.

3. To reduce and minimize the ratio of changes that need to be backed out of due to inadequate preparation.

4. To ensure that all parties affected are informed of planned changes.

5. To provide a record of changes implemented to assist with and shorten problem determination time.

6. To ensure that technical and management accountability for all changes is identified.

7. To assist with the accuracy of predictions of impact, such as response time, utilization, etc.

8. To ensure that all affected parties are not only informed, but necessary documentation and training are in place prior to the implementation.

Organization Culture and Change Management Process

The organization culture and change management process are interrelated. There are many impacts of cultural impacts on the change management process. Every organization has a unique culture, so the management system also adapted surrounding that culture and if they implement any change process they have to adapt that change process with their culture, otherwise they have to change organizational culture. The company motivation process is often to improve the effectiveness of this employee in order to improve the financial status of the company. Some organizational cultures are making barriers to implement changes, so they have to overcome those resistant against change. Most managers and leaders are not willing to do changes, because they have some fear about its success or failure. Cultural changes or changes adaptation to culture are required to the success of changes because these two cannot be separated. The good relationships between organizational culture and change management process always bring the success of the change.

Model for the Changing Process

Change is not conventional; it does not chase the particular order in change management models were suggested. So, when look at these models of change management, permit a lot of flexibility when referring a model rather than referring any model too rigidly, The way of implementation of changes are differ and depending on which model is used, but we can fallow basic steps those are essential to follow and those are common to any personal or organizational changes.

Kotter’s Eight Change Model

John Kotter’s eight change model is so suitable to compare with the other all models for the Universal Supplier change process. It has eight steps to follow for the appropriate change process that will be applied to Universal Supplier.

Step One: Create Urgency

This may help Universal suppliers spark the initial motivation to get things moving company has a low distribution network so they want to expand it all over the UK, still, it spread only within the boundary of London. The company has a threat from its market because there are many competitors arising with the new entrance. The company has the opportunity to expand its other region in the UK; because London is a more competitive place many business organizations are located there, not only the UK they have the opportunity to penetrate other EU countries Like French. Company competencies are enough for penetrating and expand the market network, but they should strengthen it further.

Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition

Effective change leaders don’t need to follow the traditional company hierarchy. To lead change, company management level need to bring all together with a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from several of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance

Step Three: Create a Vision for Change

The universal Supplier change process vision is to be a leading food supplier in the UK and the change objective is the expansion of market networks all over the UK and Penetrates to other EU countries such as French. When the first start thinking about change. There will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily and remember.

Step Four: Communicate the Vision

Change vision is communicated to all the stakeholders of the Universal Supplier. There are various methods is implicated in the success of visual communication.

Step Five: Remove Obstacles

Universal Supplier has some obstacles from the importing process. There are many rules and regulations impose when importing products, and employee knowledge and skills are not enough to achieve that change. Therefore the company has to remove those obstacles by using various strategies

Step Six: Create Short-term Wins

A company should create short term wins like annual target coverage, 10% change coverage. A company should be given a taste of achievement early in the change process. It will encourage employees to reach to final goal in changing process

Step Seven: Build on the Change

A company needs to implement continuous improvement and change to build ongoing changes. In here the final goal is to penetrate to other EU countries that should be achieved in the change process. Continuous improvement is very important for going to the final target.

Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture

The Cooperate culture regularly identifies what gets done, so the values behind the company or person vision must show in daily work. Required continuous commitment to ensure those changes are seen in every aspect of an organization, this will help that change a solid place in Universal supplier (Pvt) Ltd.

Resistant to Change

There is much reason to change, those are due to lack of understanding, poor communication process, cultural and belief barriers, norms, conflict, company structure, technological capabilities, Managerial attitudes, and style. Therefore managers and other executives need recognize and identify a different form of resistance:

1. The threat of power on an individual basis

2. Threat of power on an organization basis

3. Losing control by employees

4. Increasing the control of employees

5. Economic factor and limitation

6. Fear for the Job’s security

7. Implication on personal objectives and plans

8. Misunderstanding about changes

9. Fear of unknown

10. Limited resources allocation

There are many factors for creating resistance again changes. An organization should identify those barriers (resistant) to changes and need to find out overcome those resistant otherwise changes are not implemented successfully.

Successful Method of Implementation of Change

There are several key parameters that need to be observed if a change is to be successful, those are:

1. Idea and the need for the change: Idea generally should be serious, and otherwise there is not a perceived need for change.

2. Adaptation: Adaptation is occurred after key persons make decision chose to a head with planed objectives. Executives and general employees should help to success of change process, and major organizational changes should be sign on legal documents by the board of directors

3. Resources: Change is not happened without resources, it requires allocated resources within time frame, specially required adjustable budget, and proper human resource, technology and etc.

4. Implementation: Implementation is occurred after create change decision with organizational plan. Capital approval, employee training, arranging of materials and equipments are very important in implementation process.