Adapting to Organizational Change

Think of the saying that goes ‘our greatest strength may be our greatest weakness’. If the organization culture is to be defined or shaped by a person’s life experiences, their strengths and weaknesses, their education – both school and societal – then both employers and employees must play a critical role in establishing the culture and must see each other as contributing to this culture. Unlike the organisation’s structure, its culture cannot be represented by a chart that depicts the inter-personal relationships, both formal and informal, which exist between the people working there.

My institution has just seen a change of leadership at the level of the Board, the Principal and Deputy Principals and in some cases Head of Divisions. By modifying the organization's basic structure there was a obvious change in the existing norms, and thus in the culture as well. With the changes in leadership, also came a change in the culture of the institution in terms of its paradigm shifting to being more ‘student friendly’. This is indeed a positive approach to effectively managing the institution albeit seemingly at the expense of the instructors. The dominant culture that seems to be emerging is the customer is always right and in our case the customer is the student.

The processes that has been put in place to monitor what is going are being interpreted by the instructors as micro-management – more focus is now being placed on the instructor’s role in the students’ successes or losses and such this as their class management and planning skills. Again, something that should be taken as a positive is being seen in a negative light and this may be due mostly to the resistance to change by the instructors.

One belief of our previous organizational culture was reflected in the statement: "Don't raise questions or suggest improvements, because nothing will come of it.” The consequences of what behaviour are rewarded and what is punished as well as whose behaviour is being rewarded and whose is punished would significantly influence this institution’s new perceived culture.

There have been drastic improvements however, in the organisational structure in terms of it establishing and using its reporting lines, hierarchies and flow of information throughout the institution. The use of the appropriate chain of command is now being engraved as part of the institution’s culture and is now being fully utilized and accepted.

A new culture which is also emerging in that of meetings. At all levels of the institution, employees are being urged to meet – there are now monthly scheduled management meetings, weekly Heads of Division meetings, department meetings are also more frequent. However, one must wonder is these meetings are going to become more habitual than necessary. Routines and procedures which were so entrenched in the institution became part of the culture, and new management is seeing that in order to change this culture it will necessitate changing those routines. We must however, be able to see that where the weekly or monthly meetings become more formalized it must be seen as the only way information moves within the institution. Changing the culture to improve communication may only be possible by changing the meeting procedures or eliminating the meetings altogether.

A strong organizational culture is the foundation for making a good company a great one. The secret to and organisation’s success can been attributed to its strong culture.