How do you change an organizational culture - Essay Example

Human resource management Organization culture can be defined as the collective behaviour of people that are a part of an organization. (Wikipedia) The organization culture is mainly associated with vision, values, language, systems and symbols. If the existing culture of the organization has an adverse effect on the growth of the organization, the cultural change becomes inevitable. Organizational culture can be the consequence of many factors such as bankruptcy, substantial loss in the business, a losing substantial amount of money etc.

Though changing the entire culture is like rolling rocks uphill, there is no option but to change the culture at least partially. It is because the employees are comfortable with the existing culture, as they have been working in the same culture for years and so they are used to it. Therefore, change for the employees is not an easy task to accept. The focus of this article thus is on the change in organization culture. For this paper, the article taken for discussion is “How Do You Change An Organizational Culture?

” the main contributor in this article is Steve Denning. Keywords: Cultural Change, organization, A Brief Rationale for the Choice of article: The major rationale for choosing the article is as follows: The organization taken into consideration is World Bank. World Bank is one of the most complex organizations in the world. World Bank has proven to be a successful organization, which is owned by the governments from all over the world. So not a single culture can be dominant. It was a herculean task to change the culture of such organization in which the periphery is not small and limited.

Many presidents, in their tenure, tried to bring some change in the culture of this organization but their efforts were not successful. Naturally, it was a great challenge to change the culture. However, a visionary president of World Bank Robert McNamara accomplished this task. The article thus is a success story of a president and will definitely prove guidance for the managers and organizations willing to change their existing culture. List of four questions for group discussion: 1. Discuss the reasons of failures of each of the leaders of World Bank. 2. What qualities of leadership in Robert McNamara made him a successful president of World Bank? 3. Discuss the various approaches of the different leaders while working as the presidents in World Bank. 4. Do you think that Cultural change should be given priority?

Brief Overview of the group discussion It was a group of six persons involved in discussion. Various causes of failure of other presidents were discussed during group discussion session such as lack of strategic planning, lack of vision, lack of creativity and managing people, Lack of proper coordination ect. Unlike McNamara other President focussed on reconstruction of organization culture deliberately. Their focus was distracting and ambiguous. According to all the members of the group, the lost prosperity and image of the World Bank can be achieved only through the visionary leadership.

While describing the qualities of Robert McNamara, everyone expressed different qualities of McNamara, which appealed them. For example, A couple of members thought that it was a strategic planning which made the organizational culture change in World Bank. While some members called him a visionary. Some liked his way of motivating his people and thus getting work done in a skillful manager. One member highlighted his positive thinking and the members also liked the energetic and youngster-oriented approach of Robert McNamara.

Overall all the group members adored the perfect leadership of Robert McNamara. While discussing the approaches of the other leaders, the final conclusion was that no one had possessed the qualities of McNamara. Everyone also agreed that if it is a question of changing organizational culture fully or partially, the work and overall approach of McNamara should be studied thoroughly. Two of the group members expressed their priority for the cultural change if inevitable, while other four opined that the cultural change cannot be a priority, but the priority is to attain the organizational goal.

While attaining the goal, if the existing culture is not suitable, the good leaders like McNarmana makes the condition favourable and while making the condition favourable, the organization culture gets changed, if it is not suitable for the changing condition. But it should happen so naturally that the focus of the employees should not fix on the issue of cultural change. Unknowingly and tactfully the cultural change needs to take place. Reflection on your experience as a group leader As a group leader it was my experience about the other members of the group that all of them were quite focused to their topic.

The members look at the matter of organization change in different perspective. Change always is unwelcomed at an initial stage but if the people come to know about the feasibility of culture change they show their readiness for changing the culture. This was reflected in the group discussion. Being a leader I am fortunate to have an opportunity to manage a group of earnest people and the opinions and suggestions given them were really inspirational for me. During their discussion they were giving different ideas to advocate their opinions which gave me a comprehensive knowledge of the topic.

It was happening sometimes that some of them were tending to become aggressive and trying to inflict their opinion on others. At that time, being a group leader I had a responsibility to keep the situation balanced. I also had to keep a look at one major thing and that is to give every member an equal chance to express his or her opinion. Finally our ultimate objective was to find out the way of facilitating organizational culture change without minimum hindrances. References Denning Steve (July 23, 2011) “How Do You Change An Organizational Culture?

”http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/07/23/how-do-you-change-an-oranizational-culture/ Wikipedia Culture.