Develop Corporate Culture

If market conditions change, companies not only need to realign their strategy – their very own corporate culture must also accompany the change. This is the only way to ensure that change processes within the company are supported by the entire workforce and lead to success.

Robert A. Sedlák
CEO S&P Consulting | Guest Professor of ECNU Shanghai

From a systems theory perspective, the decision is the most important communicative event of an organization: as long as a company exists, it makes decisions.

Organizations form specific framework conditions under which decisions are made. The systems theorist Niklas Luhmann distinguished between decidable decision premises and non-decidable decision premises: The decidable decision premises can be shaped and changed by the organization. These include corporate strategy, communications and reporting, and personnel decisions. The situation is different, as the name suggests, for the non-decidable decision premises: Values, basic convictions, ritual communication and behavior patterns – or, in short, corporate culture – all of which are beyond direct influence.

Corporate culture comprises informal behavioral patterns and expectations that have developed independently over time and are taken for granted by the members of the company. It represents, mutatis mutandis, the rules of the game for internal interaction and thus has a decisive influence on the coordination of behavior within the company. However, awareness of these rules only arises when they are violated – which often happens, for example, when new employees join the company. Nevertheless, they adapt quickly to the corporate culture as violations of the rules usually result in sanctions.

Basically, there is no such thing as ”good” or ”bad” corporate culture – every company has its own ”cultural fit”. Yet, since corporate culture is based on experience, it often has a preserving effect, and it can end up blocking potential for change and inhibiting performance. If this is the case, cultural development makes sense.

The systemic culture compass enables a sound assessment of the current corporate culture, thus making it tangible and manageable in the next step.

Corporate culture can also be understood as the DNA of the company, which develops over time within the organization. It is deeply rooted in the subconscious of the company’s members and therefore cannot simply be changed by decree or at the touch of a button. It takes time and a smart approach to develop corporate culture.

The first step is to make the experienced corporate culture tangible. The Systemic Culture Compass has proven successful over the years: This scientifically based tool provides information about the existing corporate culture on the basis of quantitative and qualitative analyses. It thus enables management to identify a target/actual difference and to address relevant cultural issues within the company.

Based on the culture survey and the identified target/actual difference, we develop a customized learning architecture that effectively interlinks organizational and personnel learning. In this way, the change of corporate culture is made possible. These measures for developing corporate culture are accompanied by transparent effectiveness monitoring and regular reflections in order to identify any need for adjustments in the approach at an early stage and to implement them accordingly.