Culture Change
Achieving performance objectives by redesigning cultural competencies and supporting infrastructure.
The Problem
A government agency was facing potential cutbacks and certain competition from outside contractors for various components of its operation. Some leaders saw the opportunity to transform the agency to a high performance culture that operated “less like a government organization and more like a business,” as stated by one functional leader. Others, however, saw a threat and adopted a “this, too, shall pass” attitude.
As stated by a member of the executive team who had worked for the agency for nearly fifty years, “There have been many initiatives over the years and I’ve seen leaders come and leaders go. Those of us who’ve been around awhile know that we’ll keep working the same way we always have.”
A small group of executives, led by the agency executive, saw the outside threat as real and wanted to transform to a high performance culture able to compete with external contractors. They recognized this would require buy-in from the senior leadership, clear definition of cultural objectives and changes to supporting infrastructure.
The Solution
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Developed the plan and facilitated an organization change initiative to create a culture more consistent with the organization’s emerging needs.
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Using a series of workshops, helped organization leaders assess decision-making processes, leadership style, degree of organization integration, and unit performance.
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Provided tools to help improve processes and analyze results, including financial and statistical performance metrics.
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Established a cultural competencies framework as the foundation to identify and develop leaders and as a tool to create dialog between managers and employees. The framework was also used to evaluate and modify supporting infrastructure such as HR programs and practices.
The Results
The change program was initially piloted in one functional unit and eventually rolled out to the entire agency. At a time when other government organizations saw significant restructuring, the agency made performance gains and minimized job loss to outside contractors.