Issues in understanding and changing culture

Nowadays the process of changes covers a great number of modern organizations. But usually leaders’ attention is directed to changes that depend on the effect of situation factors, and very often the leaders underestimate the necessity of working out the strategy of development. The most important thing, they believe, is the rational actions, which presuppose purposeful work on profit increasing, cutting down of costs and strengthening of control. It gives positive results only on the first stages of preparation and realization the development program, when the questions of property, financial and  production problems  are solved.  It can be  quite natural, because on the early stages the process of changes can be regarded as getting thing put  in order in the work of organization.

 But nevertheless after a while the leaders conducting the process of reorganization come into serious difficulties. Mainly these difficulties are connected with the opposition, that   the organization changes meet on the personnel’s part. This can be explained by the fact that each organization despite its size and sphere of activities is not only a technical and economic system but also a social system. Therefore the difficulties connecting with realization of new approaches and new strategy are bound up with the organizational culture, that has been already formed.

It’s very  important  to  know  exactly  what  the term of “organizational culture” means. Organizational culture is the system of believes, norms of behavior, purposes and values, which are the rules defining the necessary way of working and behaving of people in certain organization.  The most important thing is that bearers of organizational culture are people working in the organization.  All the systems of relationships and patterns of conducting are reflected in the heads of these people. And in order to maintain such organizational culture that will correspond the worked-out strategy as much as possible, it is essential to understand what defines today’s perception, thinking and motivation of the workers.  

All this proofs that the  organizational culture has quite considerable  impact  both on  decision making and strategy changing of every organization.

Organizational culture is a dynamic structure. It influence  almost every current events occurring in the organization. Values and norms presented by organizational culture are supposed to correlate with goals and strategy of organization. The influence of organizational culture on activities of organization is developed in realization of norms, directed to achieving goals, in formation of the development strategy, and moreover in the unity of realization of strategy and evolution of organizational culture. So all this shows us the mutual connection between organizational culture and strategy changing. Let’s think what happens when an organization changes its strategy. When these changes are necessary and justified, when they are carried out in proper way, according to interests and values of the organization groups, organizational culture is         also supposed  to develop  and  change.  Very often in  itself changes  can be the  only way of  increasing the effectiveness of organization,  because  sometimes old strategy ceases correspond goals of organization. Organizational culture is a real power, and when there is an agreement between strategy changing and changing of organizational culture, success will be ensured. For instance, British Airways’ changing its strategy in the first place was directed to changing some aspects of organizational culture. They transformed an unprofitable airline with a poor reputation into an organization of politeness and profit. Another example:   Chrysler’s program of cultural change converted his organization from falling one, with high losses, terrible customer service into one of the most rich and prosperous in the world.

Sometimes it happens that two organizations with different cultures merge. And here some difficulties can appear. Because organizational culture includes not only  norms of work activities, defined by certain functional responsibilities, but also traditions, customs, norms of behaving, values, aims  and interests of workers. And to merge successfully with an organization of different organizational culture will take more efforts to come to mutual agreement. For instance, there are a lot of international interactions in modern world. Merging with international organizations the leaders can meet inevitable differences in organizational cultures of other companies, which are connected (differences) with many aspects of people’s behavior, manners, with their own world outlook, traditions, history, ways of running business. So nowadays it is important not only to develop and improve own organizational culture, but also to get acquainted with its possible types.

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The leaders of organizations should always remember that

people working in different cultures act and perform differently, and that changing the culture can allow everyone to perform more effectively and constructively. That’s why they should always correlate there decision making with organizational culture