How to Change Organisational Culture

 

Culture is a unique combination of behaviours that are expected and accepted in the workplace. A culture of trust and high performance is a great place to work. A culture of distrust and low performance is not a great place to work. If you're leading a workplace showing signs of a toxic culture, then you need to learn how to change organisational culture. According to our recent guest, you'll always win with your team if you establish an environment of improvement and a culture of query, where people are always checking on how they are doing things and trying to make sure they are doing it correctly.

The setting of a culture is something you don’t do in a boardroom, in a meeting room, or on Tuesday afternoon. It's a slow burn. It's something that takes a long time.

As a leader covering eight hospitals and looking after a group of around 3000 staff, Matt Kelly knows a thing or two about how to change organisational culture. In 2019, he was internationally recognized for it as the first Australian to be invited to speak at the world's leading Patient Experience Summit held by Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. He was also named New South Wales' Business Leader of the Year.

Matt Kelly is a member of the executive team at Healthe Care, a leading private hospital operator in Australia. He is the head of Regional Operations, North.

 

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Today’s conversation begins with the importance of creating an environment of trust, where people feel safe enough to be vulnerable and say what they aren’t happy with. Trust is a word that means so many different things to people. Matt explains how he has placed trust at the base of the ‘Triangle of T’ along with transparency. Trust and transparency at the base of the triangle can lead to fantastic teamwork.

“If you don't trust each other, there is a fracture in the teamwork. If you are not trusting someone, you are not transparent with them. It’s all connected.

 

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Healthe Care uses the platform of mission, vision and values to frame their direction and goals for their teams. They use that same platform to say to their patients, ‘this is what you should expect from us.

The five values are:

  1. Best practice
  2. Best experience
  3. Respect
  4. It's personal
  5. Positive energy

 

How to Change Organisational Culture Using Your Values

Lead by example. Changing organisational culture starts with the senior leadership team. The senior leaders must model the behaviours and attitudes they want to see in their employees. They must also hold themselves accountable for their actions and be transparent in their decision-making processes. When employees see their leaders living the behavioural values, they will be more likely to follow suit.

At Healthe Care, the leadership team talk about each of the values, focusing on what they mean to them as a group and how they look in the environment. Leadership goals involve taking this back to their teams and talking about what behaviours support each value and what behaviours detract from that value.

Only one value is chosen per month because culture change is a slow burn that happens a little bit at a time. Matt explains that you have to persistently drive the message that the values are important. Be consistent with the message as well (don't change the message). Be sure that you get the message right and continue to always bring it forward in all interactions.

It can't be stressed enough the importance of continually monitoring progress and gathering feedback on the culture from employees. As a leader, you have to be open to feedback and adjust your approach as needed. This is the only way to ensure the behaviour change being sort is effective. Upon reflection of the feedback and deciding a course of action, it will inevitably involve making changes to the human processes within the workplace. This could include how you hire and fire, manage performance, employee orientation, compensation, rewards and recognition processes. The key is to ensure all human processes are aligned with the desired behaviours. By staying vigilant and making adjustments when necessary, you can continue to move towards the positive and productive culture you envision for your organization.

A lot of the time with employees, managers, leaders, (or anyone), it is not about giving them one solution or telling them what to do. It is about giving them a toolkit to choose something that will help.

 

Celebrate the Wins

Celebrating wins is an essential part of any successful organisational culture change process. When you acknowledge and reward employees who embody your values, you create a sense of pride and ownership in your team. This will motivate others to follow and reinforces the behaviours you want to see in your workplace. It's not about only celebrating the big wins. It's important that small wins are also acknowledged and celebrated. This could be achieved through a public shoutout in the workplace, a small token of appreciation (there is enormous power in a hand written thank you note), or even a team outing (if acknowledging the team embodying the values). Celebrating wins will help keep your team engaged and motivated. They will also stay focused on the goal of creating a positive and productive culture that everyone can be proud of.

 

Evaluate and Adjust

It can't be stressed enough the importance of continually monitoring progress and gathering feedback on the culture from employees. As a leader, you have to be open to feedback and adjust your approach as needed. This is the only way to ensure the behaviour change being sort is effective. Upon reflection of the feedback and deciding a course of action, it will inevitably involve making changes to the human processes within the workplace. This could include how you hire and fire, manage performance, employee orientation, compensation, rewards and recognition processes. The key is to ensure all human processes are aligned with the desired behaviours. By staying vigilant and making adjustments when necessary, you can continue to move towards the positive and productive culture you envision for your organization.

 

The complete interview on how to change organisational culture using Matt's approach of using observation, rewards systems and problem-solving, can be listened to here, on audio platforms, or watched here, on The Culture of Leadership (TCoL) YouTube channel.

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