The Web of Cultural Change

17.1 Introduction to the Web

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the Web of Cultural Change. In my prior book Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, I created an eight-spoke web model that readers can use to determine change readiness within their company. It is essentially a radar diagram with eight spokes. Each of these spokes is one of the eight elements of change. In the appendix of Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide and on a disk that comes with the book, there is a survey of four questions for each of the eight elements. Each question, when answered, adds from 0 to 5 points to the score for that element. Therefore, for each element, you can conceivably obtain a score of 20 points, assuming that your firm receives the maximum score for each question. A completed Web of Change diagram for a typical company looks like Figure 17-1.

A score of 20 for any element places it on the outer ring. This is the best score possible for any element. Lesser scores are relegated to the inner rings with the lowest score being a 0, placing that element’s score in the center. The value of this effort is to show the readiness of your company for change.

Two important aspects are associated with the scoring. First, you want to see high scores for the elements individually. High scores indicate that the things that need to be done to prepare for change are in place. Second, you do not want to see one element score much higher or much lower than the others. Otherwise, the elements are out of alignment – either positively or negatively. It is far preferable that all of the elements are relatively equal. In this way, you can be assured that your progress is being made uniformly across all of the eight elements of change.

Another benefit to the web is that elements with low scores can be analyzed in detail, then actions can be implemented to correct the deficiency. This is not to say that the web is statistically accurate – it is not. However, it certainly is an indicator whether something is not right in your company’s world of change management. In addition, by reviewing the questions and their respective scores, you can perform an analysis to find out why.

The web model in this book is somewhat different. In the Web of Cultural Change, we are not seeking to understand readiness for change. Presumably you are already involved or planning to soon be involved in a change effort within you company. My purpose with the Web of Cultural Change is to assess each of the eight elements of change relative to the four elements of culture that we have been discussing throughout this text. If you fail to change the organization’s culture, then over time any change initiative you put in place will fail. The Web of Cultural Change will help you identify the areas of weakness with cultural change just as the Web of Change helps you identify areas where your change readiness needs improvement.