Services: Culture Change

Culture Change

Carson Consultants uses Denison’s culture assessment instrument to determine where an organization ranks on twelve elements of culture. Denison’s instrument has been tied directly to bottom-line results. In the Denison Organizational Culture Model, the core beliefs and assumptions of an organization are summarized in terms of four main cultural "traits" that appear, through research, to have an impact on organizational performance.

These underlying traits are expressed in terms of a set of management practices -- concrete activities that are linked to the four culture traits. These practices both stem from and also reinforce the dominant beliefs, values, and assumptions of the organization. These managerial practices were measured using the twelve survey indexes that make up the model.

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Need for Change. Most cultures are basically conservative in that they tend to resist change. However, outside influences are changing too rapidly to ignore these changes. If organizations are to survive they must change faster than the changes that are happening around them. A learning culture creates the necessary environment for survival.

Learning Organization Benefits

1. people are dramatically more effective at accomplishing what they want and
2. they are having a lot more fun doing it.

Change Agent. A person who leads a change project or business-wide initiative by defining, researching, planning, building business support and carefully selecting volunteers to be part of a change team. Change Agents must have the conviction to state the facts based on data, even if the consequences are associated with unpleasantness.