Change Management and Organizational Culture

The pace of change in technology, economic constraints, and evolving workforce behaviors has created an opportunity for organizations to reconsider their workplace strategies. Our workplace consultants consider more than the physical or “built” environment. Our workplace consultants examine processes for doing work, behavioral norms and policies, and collaboration styles.

For organizations to be productive, competitive, and sustain success, they must align space, tools, and technology in a way that reflects the organization’s culture and strategy.

The Clearing designs and enables programs to drive workplace transformation of varying size and scale. Whether implementing local office moves, more flexible workplace policies, installing a new space utilization technology, transitioning to more digital files, or taking on the whole spectrum of change, The Clearing develops workplace strategies, mitigates risk, and engages employees throughout the lifecycle of the project. Read one of our case studies to learn more.

The Clearing’s workplace services couple change management and communications with program management expertise including:

• Creation of an employee- and leadership-focused vision and case for change (vision, drivers, return on investment, etc.) for the workplace transformation effort
• Development of change management implementation plans, communication plans, and governance processes to guide the transformation process
• Alignment of various service providers (e.g., architects, space planners, engineers/developers, IT, facilities management, HR, security) through meeting facilitation, engagement, and project management
• Messaging and engagement strategy for labor relations / unions
• Recommendations and project management during space design, renovation, and move preparations such as office clean-out, records management / archiving activities, move sequencing, etc.
• Outfitting employees – through training, communication materials, and engagement activities – with tools, protocols, and processes to be successful in the new space

We provide a comprehensive, unbiased evaluation of the current state of your organization by assessing the degree of alignment and integration between your strategy, people, structure, culture, and systems.

Our change management consultants conduct market research and meet with a cross-section of individuals to understand their perspective of the company’s strengths and opportunities for improvement. We present the results of our assessment in a way that generates a common understanding of the data and builds ownership for addressing challenges. Once there is common understanding and ownership, we work with clients to develop specific short and long terms actions to help improve operational efficiency.

Organization design is both an art and a science with cultural, structural, social, and technical elements at play. Organization design and structures are the building blocks that support organizational processes, behaviors, and results. They must enable and support the organization’s ability to perform its mission and provide the space to move towards its vision. Many organizational structures do not add clear, present value to either customers or the organization.

We approach organizational structures by using our MUDA PRIME as a framework. MUDA ensures that all available resources are focused on the most important aspects of business and customer needs. Many firms specialize in overgrown accrued structural elements. We believe that concentrating on the fewest, most critical elements will reveal an organizational structure that creates the space for leaders and employees to better serve customers and provide results.

At The Clearing, we believe that culture is the line a group draws between the behaviors it embraces and the behaviors it does not tolerate. This line always exists. We work with clients to assess current culture and design mechanisms to help them enact behaviors that move them toward a more desired culture. Through our support, organizations can foster their desired culture, model behaviors of the desired future culture, and create mutual accountabilities and support.

The Clearing offers clients an organizational culture and leadership survey, a powerful “MRI” of your culture. The survey reveals valuable data, explains how your people view their current leadership and culture, and compares the reality to the optimal culture they desire.

The gap between the current culture and the desired culture instantly reveals key opportunities for leadership development. The organizational culture and leadership survey also measures how your leadership culture compares to other organizations and measures two domains of leadership: creative competencies and reactive tendencies. The result of the survey will build readiness for change at the team and organizational levels.

When working with our clients on business process reengineering or innovation, we examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization’s most critical business processes.

For each priority process, we develop a view of the current state based on operational data using detailed process maps and analysis to help identify major gaps. Our consultants then work together with a cross-functional client team to define a series of principles that will guide the solution generation phase, create a vision or goal for each process from the ground up, and develop a roadmap to achieve the near and long term results. The changes will help the organization realize optimal value for their stakeholders, customers, and workforce.

Most leaders have significant internal and external factors that place enormous pressure on their organizations. It is crucial that leaders identify and eliminate wasteful activities in daily operations. Leaders must recognize the functions and activities that are failing to provide value.

Alignment and integration of human capital strategies and priorities are obstacles to staying competitive and relevant in today’s environment.

The Clearing’s human capital services leverage cutting edge research, analytics, and industry insights to help design and implement critical programs. Our process answers the questions of how to prioritize investment in human capital and how to build a differential strategy based on anticipating market needs. Our services include the full lifecycle of the employee from workforce planning to succession planning.

Our full service succession planning offering ensures all necessary stakeholders are fully engaged in the process, including executives, board members, and human resource officers. We work with clients to assess internal and external candidates and develop implementation plans for both crisis and planned successions.

Many companies that go through the merger and acquisition process fail to meet the projected financial returns due in large measure to cultural misalignment. Companies spend a tremendous amount of time on the financial and operational aspects of the transaction, but often neglect the equally important “soft” task of aligning two organizations whose cultures might be entirely different. Mismatches in company cultures tend to result in employee frustration and anxiety – factors that cause many to leave the company.

The Clearing assists organizations going through a merger and acquisition reach peak levels of performance, by encouraging them to understand and manage all integration efforts from a perspective of culture creation. Through our results-based approach, we help companies stay on track throughout their transitions by encouraging leaders to see every action they take through this cultural perspective, utilizing the following steps:

• Clearly define the desired culture
• Identify any significant differences in the organizational landscape of the two companies
• Design and communicate the intended culture
• Develop a plan to align the cultures with implementation procedures and progress checks

Shared services is a concept that integrates people, process, and technology to increase effectiveness and efficiency in the execution of business process activities.

Delivering this capability with excellence requires building trusted business partnerships in which the service provider and customer are focused on the desired outcome – better service at a lower cost and jointly committed to creating a working environment of shared accountability. The Clearing can help by:

• Creating a cultural foundation that enables talented people to deliver quality service
• Creating a solid foundation from which human capital can execute a shared services capability
• Building trusted business partnerships between service providers and customers

The Clearing has developed a Shared Services Readiness Assessment. This tool is meant to help leaders think through some common challenges faced when implementing shared services.  You can begin the assessment HERE.

With The Clearing’s guidance, your shared services business model will more fully integrate people, process and technology. The resulting positive customer experience will benefit customers and service providers.

The Clearing regularly participates in shared services industry events, which feature discussions from experts on the future of shared services. Explore highlights from select events.

One of the direct ways for your organization to achieve peak performance is through a systematic evaluation of your workforce skills in relation to business operations.

The Clearing’s capabilities based assessment is a systematic approach to enhancing and sustaining maximum performance. We examine elements that compromise organizational effectiveness and assess the alignment and integration of these elements to strategic priorities. Our assessment includes a baseline of the current state with tangible and unbiased insights into gaps, misalignments, and issues that often plague organizations. Our human capital consultants provide recommendations for how to close these gaps, align the opportunities with the overarching organization strategy, and prioritize human capital investments to achieve optimal outcomes.

The Clearing works with clients to establish effective governance structures and decision-making processes during the implementation of strategy and initiatives. Governance is intended to increase accountability and anticipate risk. Effective governance can mean the difference between an organization’s success or failure.

The Clearing partners with clients to design tailored governance structures and decision-making frameworks, taking into account organizational culture, values, policies, and strategic direction. Governance structures also provide for how, and to whom, issues that should be elevated for resolution when roadblocks are encountered. The results are a clear, well-understood decision-making framework and leaders who are outfitted to make the right decisions at the right time to drive successful organizational outcomes.

The Clearing offers customized leadership training and development services for junior, middle, senior level management, and executives. Our leadership development training equips participants with the right awareness, language, and tools to address their specific challenges. Participants begin to immediately apply what they are learning to their real-world challenges with the support of our experienced instructors and coaches.

We offer both team and one-on-one leadership coaching as a stand-alone service or as a complement to our consulting and training programs. Whatever the purpose for engaging a leadership coach, most important is that leadership coaching is integrated into a leader’s daily work of committing resources, changing policies, forging new agreements, creating and maintaining positive relationships, integrating new systems, or releasing new products and services to the market.

Through individual and group coaching and foundational skills training in virtual, remote, and live settings, the participants of our training programs learn ways to:

• Enhance the leadership skills needed to build strong teams and drive results
• Reduce organizational fragmentation
• Communicate more effectively
• Anticipate and more adeptly address roadblocks and problem areas
• Increase accountability
• More effectively coach, develop, and manage their teams
• Develop and improve relationships with their peers, subordinates, and superiors

Organizational culture cannot be regulated into existence. Is your company insider threat program looking for bad apples or bad barrels?

The importance of effectively managing insider threat and conduct risk cannot be understated. Yet most businesses and agencies under-estimate the need for alignment of people – management and leadership – to understand what they are agreeing to when the business sets up an insider threat program. Security and risk officers must establish foundational areas
of management cohesion and agreement – or risk wasting the program investments.

Today’s companies face immeasurable enterprise-level challenges related to insider threats. These threats must be managed across multiple service and business verticals, and their respective security teams. Each business unit has unique work and security cultures who must comply with known risks, defend against emerging risks, and optimize for unknown risks.

Alongside, mission support functions engage with each business line in different ways, and simultaneously with individual employees daily, weekly, and annually. Understanding these internal, as well as customer frontline touchpoints, can reveal new insights to enterprise executives about insider threat and culture.

For some organizations, the resulting impact of any past breaches has not been significant enough to damage their brand, infrastructure, or the livelihood of individual employees.
However, given the current environment, for an organization’s brand, and the scale of their enterprise, now is the time for an enterprise-wide technical and cultural assessment and approach to risk mitigation, especially for security threats.The emphasis on culture here is imperative, as technical solutions to insider threat awareness and prevention are only part of the opportunity.

The Clearing’s Value Proposition

We stand for integrated communications which engender an enthusiastic and contagious grassroots movement for a culture of safety and security. Given the risk level that organizations face today, our assessment and design for effective adoption includes:

• Holistic view of insider threat profile for enterprise-wide and by key business line
• A detailed assessment of key issues, including areas where the multiple security organizations are struggling to identify and strengthen existing synergies; recommendations will identify new areas of safety and security collaboration
• System models of how information, people, and money flow, for business use cases
• Core team alignment on definition, scope, and key business-driven milestones expected within 18-24 months
• Development of insider threat policy and/or recommended changes to current policy
• Case management support customized to support goals
• Communications and change strategy roadmap to define the culture of safety and security that the enterprise wishes to achieve, including the role of the insider threat program within that context

The Clearing’s Methods

Our methods include techniques for assessing culture, including how information and decisions in one area of the business may increase risk in another part. In response to our detailed assessment of the necessary requirements and culture, we propose a human-centered approach to engaging employees in threat prevention and management.

The degree of risk involved in scaling growth has yet to be calculated at an enterprise level. We facilitate collaborative working group discussions about an enterprise’s risk. For large organizations, diverse risk factors need to be detailed per each unit, even as there are universal threats against an organization’s data, people, assets, liquidity, and freedom to innovate.

Leaders can have the tough and critical enterprise-level conversations about consequences and behavioral shifts required to address the fewest, most important interventions for universal security and employee safety.

Together we help leadership teams galvanize CONSENSUS around the fewest and most important standards and norms which an organization’s full community must adopt to reduce the company’s risk profiles.

• 31% of organizations have experienced cyber attacks on operational technology infrastructure. (Cisco)
• Since the financial crisis, the banking industry has paid an estimated US$350 billion to US$470 billion in penalties (including fines and litigation/settlement charges) for conduct-related matters, evidence that these so-called soft people issues can significantly impact the bottom line. (G30)
• The average cost of a malware attack on a company is $2.4 million. (Accenture)
• The average cost in time of a malware attack is 50 days. (Accenture)
• 21% of all files are not protected in any way. (Varonis)

Our Experts

Tara Carcillo

Paige Douglass

Chris Averill