Guidelines for achieving successful cultural change proposed by Esther
Cameron & Mike Green
‘Esther Cameron’ and ‘Mike Green’ authors of “Making Sense of Change Management”
provides some guidelines for achieving successful cultural change that help to address the issues
of cultural change in an organization. These guidelines provide analysis and recommendations
for an organization facing major strategic and cultural change. These guidelines describe one
organization’s journey as it worked towards reinvigorating its brand and also suggest strategies
for creating an employer brand. These guidelines are given below:
Always link to organizational vision, mission and objectives: Culture change as an isolated
objective is meaningless. Organizations should only involve themselves in cultural change if the
current culture does not adequately support the achievement of strategic objectives. Start from
the business strategy to determine what organization capability or core competencies need to be
developed. Ensure that there is a clear vision and a real need to change. People need to be
convinced by a compelling vision rather than compelled in a coercive way. They need to see the
overwhelming logic of the proposed changes. The more people are drawn towards the vision the
better.
Create a sense of urgency and continually reinforce the need to change: The introduction of
a foreign element into the organizational system is a good way of making change happen. This
can come from an external or internal source. Whatever it is, it needs to have the force to kick-
start the cultural change process. And there need to be plans and processes in place which keep
the momentum going.
Attend to stakeholder issues: when an organization want culture to change they have to put
themselves in the shoes of the stakeholders. Address the issues of the people who need to change
by involving them as much as possible. Change introduced in a crass or unthoughtful way will
rebound on management. Whether change is being proposed for positive or negative reasons the
organization’s future success is dependent on engaging staff to enter into the new way of doing
things. To bring success full change, an organization have to consider the following questions:
(a) How will the proposed changes benefit stakeholders?
(b) Will customers, partners, staff and suppliers really feel a positive difference?
(c) If some parties are going to lose out, how will organization handle this?
Remember that the how is as important as the what: Culture is about the way ones do things
in the organization. So, if organization has a set of core values, and of course it does explicitly or
implicitly, then organization need to manage the cultural change in line with these values. If
organization say one thing but do another, it might as well give the effort of change now. For
instance, a stated value of ‘integrity’ is rather hollow if senior managers do not keep their
promises or fail to explain why the plan has changed.
Build on the old, and step into the new: If one wants to shift the organization from one way of
doing things to a new way, he will need to see and do things from a variety of perspectives. Any
current culture, like any person, will have positive and negative features. One will need to retain
and build on the current strengths and ensure that he/she does not thrown the baby out with the
bathwater. He or she will also need to start right now in modeling aspects of the new culture. If
organization wants a coaching culture then start coaching; if organization wants people to be
empowered then start empowering. No one ever changed a culture by simply drawing up plans
and listing required behaviors, so now is the time to be creative, do things in different ways and
learn from people outside of the system.
Generate enabling mechanisms: It is important to generate enabling mechanisms such as
reward systems and planning and performance management systems that support the objectives
and preferred behaviors of the new culture. For example, this means ensuring that teams have
clear objectives that are closely aligned to organizational objectives.
Act as role models: Managers need to act as role models. They will need to model the new
values but also support individuals and teams through a period of upheaval. This can be done
through using some of the strategies such as working with teams through the stages of forming
and storming, and working with individuals as they adjust to the new ways of doing things.
Create a community of focused and flexible leaders: On the one hand many people want clear,
confident and focused leaderships during periods of change; on the other, people also want
leaders who will reflect upon what is happening ‘on the ground’ and adjust their plans
accordingly. Leadership of cultural change requires clarity of end vision together with the ability
to manage and cope with emergent issues. All six of Goleman’s leadership styles might be called
for during a period of cultural change, but it would be a mistake to believe that any one
individual could carry this off alone. Leaders should follow a number of ways that leadership can
be dispersed throughout the organization to make change happen.
Insist on collective ownership of the changes: One common trap is to make the HR department
the owners of cultural change, while the CEO and the senior management team own the changes
in business strategy. This type of functional decomposition of a change initiative is doomed to
failure. It generally leads to senior managers becoming detached from the cultural issues, and
thus neglecting their role modelling responsibilities. Employee cynicism grows (quite rightly)
and this can become a very powerful force for resisting change. This division of labor also leads
to HR people being lumbered with programs and initiatives that look like unnecessary overheads
to the local line leaders, which HR people end up having to ‘push’ and ‘sell’. This can be a very
disheartening outcome, especially when the initial ideas are often entirely sound.
Reference: Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2012). Making sense of change management: a complete
guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change (3 rd edition); pages: 338-
341.London: Kogan page.
