Culture change: systemic corporate culture development

Corporate culture matters because it massively influences everything that happens in an organisation. It has a decisive effect on the entire coordination of behaviour. It influences decisions, the motivation and cohesion of the workforce and its performance. It can be the decisive factor in whether innovations, strategic initiatives or major change processes succeed.

In addition, an open corporate culture perceived as modern is becoming increasingly important in times of skills shortages. When choosing an employer, applicants pay ever closer attention to the values and norms within a company and compare them with their own ideas. For many companies, it is therefore becoming more important to adapt the prevailing culture and align it with changed requirements.

According to the social scientist Niklas Luhmann, corporate culture is a dynamic, emergent phenomenon that arises through continuous interaction and communication within the social system. It is the complex of undecidable decision premises and eludes direct, explicit influence. Changes therefore cannot be set in motion simply by talking about them. Culture can nevertheless be changed.

Corporate culture is not seen as a static set of values or norms. It is a dynamic process that arises through continuous interaction and communication and is constantly changing. Culture is thus a form of self-description of the system that arises through the observations and communications of its members.

Corporate culture is decisively influenced by values. Luhmann regards corporate values as normative expectations that are not static. They arise through recurring communication processes and ongoing interactions within the company and are maintained in the same way. They serve as a frame of orientation for behaviour and decision-making.

The most important event in communication processes is the decision. Culture has a decisive influence on how decisions come about in an organisation and how follow-up decisions arise.

The basic principle is: there is no good or bad corporate culture. Every company has its own “cultural fit”. If the corporate culture as lived is no longer experienced as suitable for achieving the strategic goals, targeted culture development makes sense.

A corporate culture that fits the company and its business goals strengthens communication and decision-making channels and connects formulated guiding principles with what is actually lived. This eases the process of strategic orientation and increases adaptability and capacity for innovation.

Developing corporate culture is accordingly about far more than creating a pleasant working atmosphere. When market conditions change, companies need a strategic realignment, and corporate culture must also accompany the change. Only in this way can it be ensured that change processes are supported by the entire workforce and lead to success.

Culture becomes measurable with the systemic culture compass. It opens the black box of corporate culture and visualises the company’s defining characteristic. This makes it something that can be discussed and worked on.

A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods is particularly effective for examining corporate culture. Depending on the initial situation, different effective approaches to capturing the current culture emerge. For example, a compact and specific online survey can capture key information on relevant parameters of corporate culture.

In qualitative interviews with individuals or focus groups, the results of the online survey are validated and nuances are picked up. These nuances explain contradictions and potential for conflict and highlight success and risk factors with regard to the business goals.

On the basis of the results, the prevailing culture can be described clearly. This opens up a difference between today and tomorrow: where the company stands and what culture it will need in future.

Corporate culture cannot be changed at the push of a button or set by a leadership decision. It cannot be worked on directly. Effective and targeted development of corporate culture takes place “off the cushion”: culture is influenced indirectly.

The path leads through working on the decidable decision premises. These include, for example, strategic positioning, the formal communication and decision-making structures, filling leadership and key positions with the right people, and targeted people development. Corporate culture is influenced through these levers.

How the culture reacts to such interventions cannot be predicted. However, the effects of interventions at the cultural level can be observed and taken into account at the next step. Culture development therefore proceeds in steps, the effect of each of which is evaluated.

Stand-alone communication measures will hardly have a lasting influence on culture. This applies, for example, to drawing up and publishing values and leadership guidelines if they stand on their own and are not linked to changes in the levers mentioned.

There are eight key orientation points for developing corporate culture. They are accompanied by targeted change communication and continuous monitoring of effectiveness, and they extend over three stages: analysis phase and kick-off, goal development and intervention design, and implementation.

The first orientation point is culture analysis. It captures the target and the current characteristic of the company and of individual organisational units.

The second is the “sense of urgency”. The guiding question is what happens if nothing happens. The aim is to create broad awareness of the need for cultural change.

The third orientation point is the vision of the future. This means an attractive and compelling vision of the future for a shared corporate culture. It is based on company-wide strategic goals, shared values and a clear purpose.

The fourth concerns structures and processes. The organisational structure is aligned with the vision of the future and the values it contains, in order to enable sustainable corporate development.

The fifth orientation point is strategic initiatives. They are derived in order to achieve the vision of the future and work on the corresponding “enablers” and business processes.

The sixth is learning architectures. Organisational and people development are interlinked to enable organisational transformation and thus cultural change.

The seventh orientation point is re-stabilisation. Changes and innovations are established. The ability is developed to turn the selected innovations into stable standards and processes and to anchor them.

The eighth is the foresighted organisation. Routines are established with which the relevant environments are constantly observed and internal processes are adaptively developed further.

For the targeted development of a modern, agile corporate culture, transformis names eleven success factors. The first: attractive and authentic visions of the future drive innovative companies. A clearly communicated strategic positioning creates clarity about the meaning and purpose of the company. Concentrating on a desirable vision of the future that takes the emotions in the company seriously provides an action-guiding orientation for collaborative processes.

The second: an organisational design aligned with the strategic goals strengthens agility. The questions to be clarified are which organisation the organisation needs and what degree of agility is necessary to meet the current needs of existing customers adequately while at the same time working innovatively on solutions for future challenges. Anyone dealing with these questions should subject the organisational design to close scrutiny.

The third: a positive error culture makes it easier to use the intelligence of the system. The thought behind it is: if only the organisation knew everything the organisation knows. To use the knowledge available internally effectively, organisations should practise a culture of imperfection. Anyone who tries something new also makes mistakes.

This requires defined zones of error tolerance and an atmosphere that offers psychological safety. This strengthens interdisciplinary networking on an equal footing between managers, departments and teams.

The fourth success factor: established learning architectures strengthen organisational resilience. Organisations that succeed in interlinking people development and organisational development cope more easily with change and with uncertainty and growing complexity. In addition, coordinated people and organisational development makes targeted and structural influence on corporate culture effective.

The fifth: purpose-giving leadership makes it easier to distribute responsibility and creates room for manoeuvre. It is no longer enough to explain a work assignment and its significance well. Ideally, the goals of an organisational unit are developed together with the team. Its contribution to value creation and to corporate responsibility is defined collaboratively. If team members identify with their own activities and their significance for the company’s goals, this increases effectiveness and independence.

The sixth: making decisions together in the team maximises commitment. Reaching shared decisions is a form of decision-making among equals based on the exchange of arguments. Agreement on a solution is shaped by the better arguments, not by a majority vote.

This process creates broad, robust commitment among those involved. Especially with complex tasks beyond everyday routines, this is a valuable success factor.

The seventh: room for self-reflection strengthens the organisation’s future viability. In a fast-moving and constantly accelerating economic world, companies can rest on their laurels less than ever. Establishing communication routines for the self-reflection of managers and teams strengthens their continuous self-renewal, including through a healthy discarding of outdated or dysfunctional conditions.

The eighth success factor: the value of corporate identity is more than just employer branding. Corporate value creation goes far beyond financial and economic aspects. Social, ecological and cultural values and value creation are also part of corporate success. This value creation is reflected in a confident and visible corporate identity, which is of real value for targeted culture development.

The ninth: transparency towards all stakeholders sharpens corporate identity. Transparency within the organisation and towards important stakeholders is considered an important feature of effective organisations. If all important information is made accessible in principle, partners can obtain the information they need in a targeted way. This also results in a transparent approach to one’s own misconduct.

The tenth: shared values do not force uniform forms of collaboration. The targeted development of a culture shared across disciplines in the company requires jointly developed and shared values and a common understanding of the company’s goals and purpose.

This does not, however, have to result in a uniform form of collaboration in all organisational units. On the contrary: different requirements call for different styles, and that is a good thing.

The eleventh: managers act as role models and ambassadors for the target culture in the company. The communication routines that accompany a culture change go far beyond regular status reports on the intranet or in the internal employee magazine.

Managers in particular must be involved as an integral part. They are called upon to accompany the change through communication and, beyond that, to actively help shape it through leadership and communication measures.