“Implementing change entails employees being a part of the transformation from the onset, while installing change tends to lead to disenchanted employees,” Christian White, senior manager, OCM & project management, Publicis Sapient, Houston, said. “Humans are creatures of habit – we naturally have routine lifestyles, even at work. And when you turn working processes upside down, there’s a huge impact on culture.” 

According to the Edelman 2020 Trust Barometer, 83 percent of respondents expressed fear of job security due to change issues like job relocation, automation and lack of training. Organizational change can often seem like a process-oriented journey -- with efforts focused on installing new operating models and frameworks. But in order to successfully implement this change alongside digital business transformation efforts, organizations must also take into account how culture exists within the workplace -- the nuances of human nature, the values and rituals that have become ingrained and embraced by the workforce. Without understanding the “softer” elements of how people work on a day-to-day basis, new processes may be short-lived, or run the risk of being rejected entirely due to internal resistance or slow adoption by employees who may struggle to break old habit.  

“Getting an operating model up and running is less about the design of it rationally and more about the acceptance of it emotionally,” Hopgood said. “What you really need to understand is: To what degree are you culturally aligned towards the new model or culturally resistant to the right ways of working?” 

How to set a cultural baseline

Setting a cultural baseline, or understanding how culture currently operates and is expressed at the onset of a transformation initiative, can help organizations create programs aimed at retaining the core values while identifying potential barriers to change. By evaluating the impact of change and readiness to embrace it, tailored communications, training and initiatives can be created to address impacted stakeholders in a meaningful and proactive way.

We have found that leveraging ethnographic research can help organizations begin to evaluate their overall change programs by following a few key strategies:

Set Challenge-Based Hypotheses

Work with leadership and initial stakeholders to gather feedback and identify a set of potential cultural roadblocks. For example, does the company struggle when making tough decisions or holding people accountable? Are different departments working in siloed environments? Do employees feel connected to how their work translates to broader company values? These initial hypotheses can help frame areas of study and how feedback is measured across the broader organization on critical issues.

Common Cultural Roadblocks to DBT Success

At Publicis Sapient, we have identified several common cultural roadblocks organizations face when approaching change efforts. Evaluation can help identify potential challenges early, so leadership can work to establish appropriate programs for change.

Test your hypotheses with a variety of feedback tools

Depending on resources and bandwidth, organizations can leverage different channels to collect feedback from stakeholders across the organization. Techniques like questionnaires, interviews, social listening, workshops, diary entries and observation allow for greater depth of feedback and more visibility into potential correlations that may occur across channels to prove or disprove initial hypotheses.

Connect findings to understand cultural baseline

Information collected through research tools can help align hypotheses to feedback, creating a holistic picture of how a company culture operates. Though different organizations each have their own unique structures, we have found that cultures commonly revolve around a combination of two different baseline values, with varying degrees of emphasis depending on the nature of the organization.

“Understanding whether you tend towards being relationship-based or more delivery-based helps you then effectively tailor or customize any of your change programs so that you are coaching and training to mitigate against the right characteristics of your culture,” Hopgood said.

For example, one UK-based financial services organization conducted a study of their existing culture to identify how their people operated, what values mattered most to the business and what potential roadblocks existed when implementing new operational systems. Once they discovered their organization skewed towards a relationship-focused way of working, they developed a list of recommendations that facilitated a new change model, while still adhering to the cultural foundations that were most important to their core brand identity, legacy, and values.

Implementing cultural change

Developing – and then implementing – large-scale organizational changes takes time. While processes can be introduced, the pace in which new ways of working are adopted may take longer as employees get used to new ways of working and new cultural norms are established. Integrating culture alongside process at the start can help ensure shifts in culture happen at the appropriate pace alongside new operating models.

“You can't just build on the layer of new thinking on top of layer of old behavior and expect that to succeed,” Hopgood said. “Organizations need to be honest about the pace of the change for the change to then actually take root and be authentic.”