The Upside of Cultural Change

“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.”

-Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveler (1824)

Several days ago, I did a blog post on the cultural changes taking place at General Motors. It was based on something as simple as a dress code policy in which employees in the corporate office can wear jeans to work. I gave a lot of credit to former GM CEO Fritz Henderson, who by all media accounts, seemed to be the agent for change that GM needed to emerge from the brink of disaster. One day later, news came that Henderson resigned, presumably because the changes he implemented were not happening fast enough for the GM board of directors.

GM officials won’t share specifics about the board’s displeasure with Henderson but now chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre is on record as saying he is working to remove the long-standing walls of bureaucracy in GM and empowering employees to usher in culture change. Whitacre told the New York Times, “I want to make sure people understand that the responsibility for this company to be successful is not just with the C.E.O. It’s them.”

Change is not easy

In this new economy change is not easy but it’s necessary to survive. As an example, both General Motors and Ford are launching new initiatives to increase small car sales to consumers. Ford has hired a social media strategist to help connect buyers to online efforts. GM is training its sales force to speed up response times to online shoppers. And GM is also taking what appears to be a page out of the Wal Mart playbook by hiring receptionists to greet potential car buyers in place of a salesman.

These are small cultural shifts that could obviously have some impact on customer engagement. However, the strength in any company transformation lies in employee engagement.

Measuring the impact of change

With all of the work companies are putting into cultural change and brand strategy, what if there was a way to align the employee behaviors to the company strategies? There are unique opportunities to truly bring company strategies to life rather than have them reside on paper only.

Most company leaders recognize they cannot deploy the same change initiatives that were used in the past. Social networking tools have ripped the cover off and exposed weaknesses that leaders have been trying to hide for years. As a way of shoring up these weaknesses, companies can engage workers in meaningful dialogue and collaboration to discover solutions to these problems. Put a social media policy in place and train workers on how to be brand ambassadors on networking sites. This is a strategic approach to enabling employees to join the conversation on Twitter, Facebook and other sites and drive customer engagement.

It’s a Team Effort

Identifying and communicating the core values of the company in conjunction with the change management can be reinforced through performance management tools that connect brand behaviors to each core value. The beauty of this begins to take shape when management takes a more active role in employee engagement instead of leaving it solely to human resources. The key, though, is taking action on issues that are brought to the attention of management.

Working as a team to improve communications between the C-suite, managers and employees is a crucial part of culture change. Experts say top leaders must break down barriers and bureaucracy to connect with lower-level employees to develop what’s called, ‘listening downwards.’ Employee behavior tools allow for that to happen because employees are engaged with each other, managers and ultimately company leaders. Connect these behaviors to corporate strategies and align it with customer engagement and the team is strengthen to take on the competition.

Is your company experiencing a culture change? How would you assess the ability of leadership to drive the change?