3 steps of C-Cube approach for cultural transformation

Culture transformation within an organization is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of reinvigorating a workplace. With the ever evolving corporate environs, it is becoming mandatory for organizations to adapt and transform into an inclusive, high-performance organization. An organization’s culture comprises of an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and behavioural patterns and assumptions.And all of this goes for a complete overhaul the moment transformation sets in.  Transformation requires culture change because radical shifts require leaders and workforce to operate and work together differently to fully realise their benefits. Transformation requires a culture of greater accountability, empowerment, openness, collaboration, innovation and trust. 

However, for culture transformation to aptly materialise, behaviour and attitudinal change are the be-all and end-all. Sans behaviour change, no change can be implemented in an organization.

With India being the future knowledge hub, organizations today need to cater to customers globally and as a result they need to measure up to global benchmarks. Customers expect speed and agility, besides speedy delivery and prompt response. Such expectations have been a steering force for organizations to rethink and evaluate their internal culture and initiate the exercise of transformation.

Manufacturing organizations have a unique requirement when it comes to people and work culture at large and deserve to be approached accordingly. While the service sector depends on sheer decision making and agility, manufacturing is a lot about adhering to processes. Both sectors have completely different cultural set-ups. While in service, the workforce is more knowledge based, the workforce in manufacturing is more of skill based. They need to be mentored differently and therein too, one needs to be aware of how the changes are implemented. Not just that, today the manufacturing sector has also come a long way. It caters to global customers and thus the culture change initiated needs to factor in customer-orientation and agility, borrowings from the service sector and behavioural patterns and attitudes need to be moulded accordingly.

In manufacturing companies, the grass root level employees need to be made aware of what the customer expects since without focus on the end result, driving innovation would be a challenge. Thus the employee needs to be conditionedto incorporate a far sighted approach and that can happen only through facilitating a change in his outlook, attitude and behaviour. It is behavioural change that can eventually lead to flexibility within the organization and ensure employees adapt to new ways of driving innovation.

Change is often unwelcome since it involves pushing the envelope and moving out of comfort zones. Change is often greeted by widespread scepticism and this is one the foremost and biggest challenge while driving cultural and behavioural change in an organization. What one needs to be also alarmed of is the habit of falling back into the older behavioural patterns since people have a natural tendency to go back to old habits and such instances can sound a death knell to transformation practices. Employees need to be monitored and regulated through various processes and the transformation needs to be well integrated through various processes-be it business, HR or people. All in all, the transformation and thus the behaviour change being driven have to be on the priority list of the company’s leadership.