Culture is very important for achievement — according to the connection between leadership and culture, employee loyalty, customer satisfaction, and innovation you can also visit The Gap Partnership. However, “strong” doesn’t mean fixed. As the objectives and strategy change with time should intentionally be shifted. The best leaders ask, “Who do we need to be (culture) to achieve what we’re trying to perform (strategic goals)?” But there’s one barrier that holds back organizations from successful and real culture change: possession. The very first question to ask when culture change is on the horizon should not be, “Just how do we go about this?” But rather, “Who owns this?”

The answer is often, HR. Recently, I spent some time in the process of changing their culture, with a few of the world’s largest financial institutions. They have an important call to modify, a remit to do it one challenge of possession. And as with most medium-to-large organizations, official responsibility for the organizational culture that is changing can be found in the hands of senior HR executives and their team.

As anybody had hoped while culture change can be an exciting and important project for HR the sole responsibility of HR does not work out. Too frequently, it devolves into a transactional “box-ticking” exercise. Within this financial institution, for example, it’s often unjustly regarded as ” more to do out of HR.” This is not through bad intention or lack of perception that the culture shift matters. It is usually due to competing priorities. So unless it is the responsibility of business unit leaders, it’s difficult when there are many other formal responsibilities to maneuver culture shift. Especially when they know that HR that tend to have skills and experience in this area is assumed to be leading the charge.

Authentic culture change means altering the way in which the business lives and breathes. It shapes the way people make decisions, get their job done, what they prioritize, and also how they interact with coworkers, clients, and clients. It is only powerful and successful when company leaders see it as their responsibility and see HR as a resource for helping them achieve it. Consider a newly released longitudinal study by Anthony Boyce and colleagues that discovered culture “comes first” in predicting sales, as evidenced by client satisfaction. Creating that culture is at least as much of a revenue concern as an HR priority.

Why civilization change has to be an endeavor, that is. HR leaders can help by doing four things business executives successfully perform culture change:

 

    Facilitate the research period. To move from A (existing culture) to B (desirable, future culture) we frequently devote a good deal of time and ease conversation and appointment deciding on B, but not enough time having a tangible, meaningful comprehension of A. What would we look like today, at all levels — principles, behaviors, processes, policies, artifacts? In what a resembles the company, the larger the company, the number we’ll get. Company leaders will need to understand, and HR can be a huge resource for facilitating this process.

    Convince leaders culture can change… So many senior leaders that I meet are, in reality, very skeptical that culture really can change. And rightly so. When internal or market conditions have forced it upon the organization, many have seen the culture change. This uncertainty is justified since there are lots of examples of culture change not transpiring despite all of the “talk” or of the change not turning out well. HR will help by sharing examples of how organizations have, in line with their tactical goals and driven culture change.

     Then teach them how to change it. We can’t assume company leaders will be aware of what to do to influence culture. While some might discover that it comes somewhat intuitively some may have the experience already. Few will have been engaged in major culture change. It’s insufficient to engage business unit leaders to get their input on what needs to change and their buy into the initiatives. Just if we equip business leaders with the skills to drive culture change can we hold them and then give them ownership accountable for the achievement.

    Have a formal “handoff” where the job is handed over to the company. As soon as the time comes to change from A to B and start making changes to facilitate the new culture, the message to business leaders should be clear from the very, very top: “This is not an HR project, it is yours.” HR is there to support, assist, and facilitate the change — much as an external company of experts would be. But possession of making these modifications doesn’t lie together it lies with the business unit leaders themselves.

We have to be clear that in an organization’s life cycle, culture can and should change. And this change is directed from the top,driven by equipped, accountable business unit leaders..