How can we re-design the culture of an organization with a change in business & brand strategy?
THE BIG QUESTION
Creaticity Culture Design
THE BIG QUESTION
KEY INSIGHT
BUSINESS IMPACT
How can we realign a culture of an organization with a change in business & brand strategy?
A design thinking approach to realignment of organizational culture
The evaluations reported a success rate, of 81% with a transformative change in the overall personality of the organization
Culture design is an imperative step for an overall brand transformation exercise to work
The term ‘Culture Design’ can seem a little counter intuitive. Can anyone really ‘design’ culture?
That was the big and unusual challenge for us as part of the overall brand transformation exercise conducted for Ishanya mall, Pune. We realized that in order to sustain and grow the business in its new brand-experience-service avatar, it was imperative that the internal team shed historical baggage and truly align with the new values and beliefs.
We used the design thinking philosophy of iteration & ‘learning by doing’ to redesign Creaticity’s culture
Culture classically percolates over time through set values and unsaid beliefs into day to day behavior. However a new culture would take ages to assimilate if ‘imparted’ following this hierarchy.
We used the principles of design thinking to achieve cultural alignment by ‘actively practicing desired behaviors’ which led to an internalization of the new values and beliefs by the team. The method enabled the team to recognize immediate changes in both individual capacity and as part of a team, cementing the new beliefs and values in the process.
Hence the journey of shaping Creaticity’s organizational culture was divided into three parts, running parallel to each other throughout the one year exercise. These represented the encoding of new VALUES, BELEIFS and BEHAVIOUR.
The culture exercise with Creaticity was a co-creative effort across one year of the brand transformation
Multiple workshops & working sessions were conducted to:
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Facilitate REALIZATION OF BELIEFS & BEHAVIORS that have to be ‘undone’ and ones that have to be infused based on the future direction of the business and organization. Tangible ideas were co-created with the team which could allow the intended change.
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INTERNALIZATION OF VALUES through experiential exercises that helped form a behavioral framework, which then translated into day to day practices
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PROTOTYPE NEW IDEAS through mini projects, new rituals and practices. The focus was on speed rather than completeness of ideas such that they may be refined through real time implementation and feedback.
The key tools used during the culture exercise were the Golden Circle, Hofstede culture model and CPD (Create Preserve Destroy)
The key tools used during the culture exercise were the Golden Circle, Hofstede culture model and CPD (Create Preserve Destroy)
We utilized culture models like Golden Circle and Hofstede to articulate the mind & soul of the organization and translated it into a mental framework. These learnings were further encoded into 7 core organizational values.
We used the collaborative CPD (create, preserve, destroy) technique to enable articulation of beliefs and mindsets that needed to be created, preserved or destroyed in order to reach the intended new values. Some of the key mindsets/ beliefs worked upon were: Positivity, Initiative & Motivation, Openness to New Ideas, Consumer Orientation, Pace of Work, Trust, Ownership, and Outcome Orientation & Collaboration.
Assessment & impact measurement is key to an intangible exercise like culture design
To test the impact of the one year culture design exercise, an employee survey using the NPS scoring method + indepth qualitative interviews were conducted. The evaluations reported a success rate, of 81% with a marked difference in the overall personality of the organization. In the words of the team itself, it went from a grumpy, old, rigid old man to a vibrant, future forward, open, young person
