The Actions To Accelerate Your Culture Change

Hit the ground running and embed the culture change to achieve maximum results

Your culture change has a plan, it has the right people in place, and you are ready to roll it out.  Your change stands a better chance of success than most change programs as you have a plan with the right people.   Sometimes changes fail because the change is not embedded quickly, people lose interest and go back to their old ways.  If you haven’t already, please start at the beginning of the series with the warning signs that you need a culture change.

In this post, we will look at 4 Actions that will ensure the culture change is embedded quickly, delivering maximum results to the business.

1. Systematize It – Instead of dictating a new process, make sure it is part of a system.  The system should only allow one way to do the task, be simple, and be used often.  A great example of this when starting to have the operators submit work requests.  It should be part of the CMMS, and require specific fields to be populated.
2. Quick Wins to build Momentum – Most people naturally want to be part of something bigger than themselves.  They also want to do great work.   So leverage this and give them some quick and easy wins.  It could be a new way to track production, a new way to submit a work request or an improvement on the production line.  As they achieve these wins, they will buy into the change.
3. Leadership – Without leadership and an active presence of leaders, the change will not be successful.  Leadership is not about telling people what to do, but serving those on the front line so they can do their work.   Having leaders present, actively involved and supporting the changes will show everyone that the change is not a flavour of the month.  With the leaders present, any issues encountered can be quickly addressed and rumors put down.
4. Rewards – Rewards can be used to reinforce the changes and the new behaviours.  Rewards do not have to be monetary in nature either.  The best rewards are based on the individual.  Some people what public recognition, some want financial rewards, others, may want private recognition.  Regardless of which reward is used, it has the potential to quickly drive the behaviours if used properly.  Rewards are part of the reinforcement portion of the ADKAR methodology.
5. Use Small, Incremental Goals – Start by establishing small easy to achieve goals (see #2).  As the goals are achieved consistently, increase them a little at a time.  Keep the goals stretching, but achievable.  These stretching goals combine with rewards (see #5) will keep the team moving in the right direction.

These are just a few of the ways to embed the change quickly.  What have you done to embed changes in your organization?  What accelerated the change?

It is important to note, that just because the change can be embedded quickly, it does not mean that it will be sustained.  In the next post, we will cover how to sustain the culture change.

Remember, to find success, you must first solve the problem, then achieve the implementation of the solution, and finally sustain winning results.

I’m James Kovacevic
Eruditio, LLC
Where Education Meets Application

References & Related Materials:
ADKAR: A Model for Change