Change is the new normal
A lot of change projects do not deliver at the end what was expected beforehand. And that often has to do with the culture of an organization. The same problem occurs with mergers and acquisitions. When 2 cultures are not compatible, 1 + 1 is often less than 2 instead of more. At Lemento, we have over the years built up a special expertise around realizing a sustainable culture change. We do this scientifically based and strongly linked to values and behavior. In the short term, we focus on behavioral change. After all, if we can embed this sustainably in the organization, that behavior will determine the culture.
Culture shift is a broad concept. Some clients need a real culture shift, e.g. from closed to open or hierarchical (internal / control) to customer-oriented (external / flexibility). With other customers we realized smaller changes such as stimulating self-leadership, creating an innovation mindset, renewing a safety focus or fueling quality thinking.
Developing values is often the first step. But a few posters on the wall do not ensure that those values suddenly become accepted by all employees. Through a “living the values” program, we help our clients make values concrete and translate them into employee behavior. The end result is a new way of thinking, embedded in the organization and fully in line with the new values.
In a merger or acquisition, culture alignment is one of the critical success factors. Both before, during and after the transaction, this will be actively managed. In M&A we have 3 options: best of both, (slightly) changed culture acquirer and tabula rasa. We start with an assessment of the existing cultures, defining the desired culture and analyzing the gaps between today and tomorrow.
