10 Steps to Align Corporate Culture

Quality is no longer a competitive advantage. Today’s priority is to be heard in a “noisy” marketplace. What strategic imperative will set the pace tomorrow? Whatever it turns out to be, rest assured that strategic imperatives will continue to change at an ever-increasing rate. Without adjustment, the capacity or willingness of employees to embrace new strategic initiatives in a way that promotes delivery of their company’s brand promise will be compromised. Security in the shift age comes from having a corporate culture capable of inspiring and marshaling people—seamlessly realigning them to support each new strategic initiative. Cultural alignment is the only dependable bridge to corporate survival and prosperity.

How to: ALIGN CULTURE TO SUPPORT A STRATEGIC INITIATIVE

*culture: “the collective habits used by a group of people to get things done”

Steps To Align Corporate Culture

1. Explain the strategic initiative (SI) being implemented (what, why, when, how, and who)

2. Identify the need to align culture behind the SI

• Define culture as collective habits used by a group to get things done
• Explain the relationship between the “Adventurer” the perennial 5-year-old that lives within us all of us They are the source of corporate energy) and the “Admiral” (the experienced adult side of us that plans and produces)
• State that making the new SI work will require endorsement from the Admirals as they control the corporate WILL TO WIN and DESIRE TO BELONG

3. Differentiate management (position, plans, processes) from leadership (people, values vision)

• Demonstrate why culture is a leader (people) not a manager (position) issue

4. Advise that in the post-industrial era aka “shift-age,” leadership must be everybody’s business

5. Demonstrate that what you believe influences what you can see and determines the direction you are predisposed to take

• Create new or clarify existing cultural values
• Help participants Transition from personal (core) values to team (cultural) values
• Explain how cultural values can move from knowledge, to become a performance tool
• Demonstrate how to use cultural values to inspire pirates to support the SI

6. Show why vision is the future tense of values

• Identify the need for a north star.
• Create a Statement of purpose (aka brand promise)
• Focus a vision of the preferred future (what successful SI implementation will look like)

7. Develop and deliver a differentiation message (promoting the SI task at hand)

8. Develop an ethics platform (values are what is tolerated … not what is wished or said)

• Create a behavioral boundary for each cultural value
• How to recognize cultural-values contributions
• Implementation reinforcement
• Benefits of the performance redirection process and participation expectations

9. Skills practice:

10. Seek the buy of Adventurers

• Practice delivering a differentiating message that promotes the SI\

by Dr. R.A. “Art” McNeil PhD. Vistage Florida chair