How many times have you heard that? A project seems to be aligned with business goals, the ROI has been evaluated and re-evaluated, but upon introducing it to the actual performers of the impacted processes, tasks, and outputs; the culture alarm is sounded. Quite often, this is the beginning of a difficult project path with resistance being met at every turn.Once a project leader, often the Project Manager, is stuck with this problem they have two options: either stop to evaluate the culture and how it would align with project outcomes, or continue forward and try to appease the culture issues as they happen.
Before going any further, what does organizational culture actually mean? Organizational culture is the personality of the organization, departments and/or geographic locations of an organization can have different cultures from each other and the greater organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, and norms (communication methods, methodologies, etc.) of organization members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. This “sense” is difficult to capture and seems, from a project perspective, to be a component of project readiness.
Unfortunately, some organizations use “culture” as a means to prevent change. Culture used this way makes it a critical challenge for change management.
I have been working on a program called the People Snapshot ™ to define many of the pieces that make up the organizational culture and by doing so help organizational leaders plan and deploy appropriately while addressing the values of the people who make up the organization.
The dimensions to this are many; here are the ones that I am trying to address first:
O Change Management Tolerance
O Communications Preferences and Effectiveness
O Cultural Dynamics
O Environmental Responsibility
O Generational Mix (Baby Boom, Gen X, Gen Y)
O Management (Trust in Leadership)
O Technological Savvy
Please use this blog for your stories (good or bad) with organizational culture and how they turned out.
If you’re interested in learning more about the People Snapshot™, visit http://www.enterprisesolved.com/.
