Cultural and change management are radical and fundamental forms of organizational transformation. They involve changing basic values, norms, and beliefs among stakeholders in order to improve organizational performance. Companies today understand that improved processes lead to better performance; however, they also need to realize that certain cultural barriers may exist that keep change from taking place. Unless companies identify and repair cultural and process barriers, organizational transformation remains hindered.
Such barriers are often hidden and embedded in a company culture. For example, when people are assigned to sign off on a decision, organizations may not know who really owns the process, particularly when it crosses five functional groups, thus the reply time gets slowed. New product development, also faces culture change problems if an engineer, presented with a breakthrough idea from the outside, is stonewalled because they cannot take credit.
Thomas Group culture change consultants use a proprietary methodologyy to allow the organization to determine if a barrier is related to a a certain subject matter, process, or cultural position. Once identified, the company needs to be very clear about what changes and new behaviors are required throughout the change management process and implementation plan.