LIGHTING THE FUSE HOW TO DRIVE CULTURAL CHANGE

ENGINEERSAUSTRALIA.ORG.AU26

Changing a

company’s core

culture has to start

at the top and

the actions of its key

executives, led by the

CEO, are instrumental if

that culture is to change.

But what is the

definition of culture?

“Culture is potentially

an esoteric term and

hard to define,” says

Rosalind Coffey, Head of People, Culture and

Client Experience for Macquarie’s Banking and

Financial Services business.

“We have distilled this into four key factors.

Firstly, we focus on the behaviours, which is how

we act towards each other in good times and bad,

and how we behave with our clients; secondly, we

focus on symbols, which are the visible signs of

culture such as what our office looks like and who

is promoted.

“Thirdly, we focus on rituals such as the things

we do together on a regular basis, which can as

simple as breaking for morning tea as a team to

ensuring we have a quarterly meeting with senior

leaders to hear business updates first hand, and

lastly we focus on stories, which is how we talk to

and about each other and our clients.”

Whenever a firm attains world-beating success, praise for its company culture is seldom far behind. But transforming a company’s culture with

an eye for similar success is far from easy, writes Louis White.

LIGHTING THE FUSEHOW TO DRIVE CULTURAL

CHANGE

MANAGEMENT

Different strokesThe reality is that each

business has its own

cultural norms from

its office location and

set-up, working hours,

dress requirements and

so. For a company with

a poor culture, it is very

difficult to change.

Most companies

believe a simple

engagement survey is

the trick to driving both cultural change

and innovation. In reality, nothing could be

further from the truth.

“Culture is the cornerstone to a successful

company, yet for some reason most companies

ignore it,” says Sue Jauncey, Pulse Australasia

founder and director.

“Today the focus is all about staff engagement

with leaders advised to measure engagement

levels because a happy and engaged workforce is

expected to increase productivity results.”

She says the theory is that by increasing the

discretionary effort of the individual employees

we have more engaged and subsequently

more productive employees but we may

not understand the connections between

engagement results and what they may be

unintentionally reinforcing?”

Troop moraleA recent Aon Hewitt survey reported 57 per

cent of staff did not trust their senior leadership

teams. The money out the door from disengaged

employees is estimated to cost Australia more

than $33 billion a year.

One way to increase personal accountability

is to create an aligned culture within the

organisation based on key psychological

principles of human behaviour.

Once established, key signature behaviours

become ingrained in the company culture. These

are then led by the CEO and positively acted out

by everyone. This is then followed by developing

accountable business measures, which can be

accurately assessed.

Lighting the fuseEncouraging innovation is another part of the

cultural challenge and

while some companies

think that by establishing

an innovation team or

even a dedicated room

will create the catalyst

for a cultural innovative

shift, the challenge is far

deeper than that.

“Innovation as a

term is widely used in

so many contexts and

scenarios, that is so all

encompassing; it risks losing practical meaning

unless contextualised,” says Associate Professor

Renu Agarwal, Director, Strategic Supply Chain

Management program, UTS Business School,

Sydney.

“The phenomenon of innovation has

historically brought transformation and is

increasingly seen through a multi-disciplinary

lens spanning the science and practice

of engineering, economics, sociology,

organisational behaviour, and management.”

For a company to be innovative, it needs

to be led strongly internally and have a high

performance internal culture. This has to an

objective throughout the whole company.

“An internal culture of high performance

implies becoming more innovative, and not the

other way round,” Agarwal says.

“Yet few companies such as Google and Apple

are in that league. These companies got there not

by chance but by choice.”

“An internal culture of high performance implies becoming more innovative, and not the other way round.”

ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | NOVEMBER 2016 27

Macquarie Business Banking has specialists dedicated to the needs of engineering businesses.We can help you with:

• tailored cash flow solutions, including successionplanning, working capital and acquisition finance

• residential and commercial property lending

• asset, property and equipment finance

• transactional banking, including deposit andpayments solutions.

We’re here to help Australian engineering businesses grow, innovate and prosper.

Contact Danny Chung, Head of the Built Environment, Macquarie Business Banking, on 0438 223 765 or [email protected]

Business banking from a different perspective

This document has been prepared by Macquarie Business Banking, a division of Macquarie Bank Limited ABN 46 008 583 542 AFSL and Australian Credit Licence 237502. Before acting on this information, you must consider its appropriateness having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs. You should obtain a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) available from us and consider that PDS before making any decision about whether to acquire a particular financial product.

macquarie.com/business

ea-bb-from-a-different-perspective-v4.indd 1 29/08/2016 11:46

Organisations need to learn, adapt and solve wicked and intractable problems in order make their customers’ lives easy. Strategically embrace the process of dynamic capability building as a ‘natural way of organisational life and culture’ in the quest for innovation, sustainability, productivity and growth.

This refers to the spread of a behaviour pattern, attitude, or emotion from

person to person or group to group through suggestion, rumour,

or imitation. The more numbers of staff become

involved in measuring the positive

demonstration of the signature behaviours, the higher numbers

of staff that want to

become involved.

A fundamental requirement for creating a high performance organisation lies in every individual

owning a personal commitment to contributing their very best and improving every day.

Define the performance benchmark and rigorously hold people accountable to meeting it. This ensures everyone understands what is expected of them.

Capture opportunities

Benefit from the contagion effect

Individual commitment

Recognise and reward performance

“A happy and engaged workforce

is expected to increase productivity

results.”

ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | NOVEMBER 2016 29

MANAGEMENT

4 PRINCIPLES FOR EFFECTING CULTURAL

CHANGE

Macquarie Business Banking has specialists dedicated to the needs of engineering businesses.We can help you with:

• tailored cash flow solutions, including successionplanning, working capital and acquisition finance

• residential and commercial property lending

• asset, property and equipment finance

• transactional banking, including deposit andpayments solutions.

We’re here to help Australian engineering businesses grow, innovate and prosper.

Contact Danny Chung, Head of the Built Environment, Macquarie Business Banking, on 0438 223 765 or [email protected]

Business banking from a different perspective

This document has been prepared by Macquarie Business Banking, a division of Macquarie Bank Limited ABN 46 008 583 542 AFSL and Australian Credit Licence 237502. Before acting on this information, you must consider its appropriateness having regard to your own objectives, financial situation and needs. You should obtain a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS) available from us and consider that PDS before making any decision about whether to acquire a particular financial product.

macquarie.com/business

ea-bb-from-a-different-perspective-v4.indd 1 29/08/2016 11:46