Organization Culture and Change - Coursework Example

Running Head: Management Management Name Institute Date Organization Culture and Change Introduction Culture is the atmosphere and practices that organizations develop in their day to day handling of people (Schein 2004). The identity of the organizational is therefore determined by culture. Culture therefore give Organizational Culture can be defined as the shared assumptions, norms, values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of employees in a given organization. Culture determines the way in which things are done around the organization. There are two levels of corporate culture; the visible and the invisible levels, the culture iceberg analogy (Schein 1990). The visible levels of the culture iceberg consist of the observable legends, dress, signs, behaviors, ceremonies and physical setting. The invisible levels of the culture iceberg involve the underlying beliefs, values, feelings, assumptions and attitudes. Organizational change often focuses on the visible levels. Most health organizations focus on the invisible levels of culture to achieve a successful organizational change. Research studies have found a significant correlation between certain types of culture and economic performance of the organization (Dension 1990; Kotter and Hesketti 1992; Sorensen 2002). A high performance organizational culture creates the ability for an organization to attain its goals and objectives. The purpose of this paper is to argue that the culture of Queensland health does not support the achievement of their goals and objectives (Bradley and Parker 2006). There are several key elements for a high performance organizational culture to lead to results improvement and enable to the organizational to compete in a highly dynamic environment. First, a high performance culture must have a well defined organization vision and mission. The mission and vision of an organization explains why the organization exist (Denison and Spreitzer 1991). It serves to inspire, enlighten stakeholders, generate client loyalty, ignite employee zeal and encourage discretionary effort. A high performance organizational culture must also have common organizational values. Organizational core values serve to guide employee behavior and shape business practices as the organization strives to deliver its promises to its clients, employees and external stakeholders. The organizational core values therefore act as guiding principles and rules as regards the behaviors of all stakeholders (Bradley and Parker 2001). Another characteristic of a high performance organizational culture is shared accountability. The organization cannot achieve high performance unless every employee becomes accountable for his/her results. Hence, an organization culture should be result-based, that is, it identifies and communicates key organizational targets, goals and strategic priorities and holds every employee accountable to achieve these targets (Willlcoxsom 2000). To enhance accountability, an organization culture should provide timely, accurate and reliable information to all employees. Therefore, an organization culture should be supportive and performance focused. It should develop mechanism for rewarding and recognizing employees who exhibit the desired cultural values. A high performance culture should have open and transparent communication and develop appropriated communication channels which encourages feedbacks at all levels. This is to ensure that information is cascaded effectively from the top management level to the front-line levels (Bradley and Parker 2000). Changing an organizational culture is a huge challenge, especially for an organization with a large bureaucratic structure like Queensland Health (O’Farrell 2006). Changing an organizational culture can also be difficult as it can be a significant source of stress and job dissatisfaction. Organizational change can result to change fatigue as employees become sarcastic and exhausted as they respond to change initiatives. To prevent change fatigue, it is important to allow breaks between change initiatives as this will help employees to practice and develop new skills, master new work practices and recover from strain experienced during the change process. Organizational change is a process which occurs over a long period of time. It is therefore important to select a team of committed leaders who can serve to facilitate the process (Papa 2008). Case Study Queensland Health does not have a high performance organizational culture. It has a very weak organizational culture. Its culture does not reflect the features of a high performance culture. The organizational culture of Queensland is founded on power and control. Queensland health’s main culture emphasizes on rules and regulations, with little flexibility. It has a defensive/aggressive organizational culture. The organizational culture of Queensland Health does not have a well defined vision and mission. The fact that the organizational culture of Queensland health does not have common organizational values has lead to development of poor behaviors, values and attributes, such as bullying, intimidation and secrecy, blaming, irresponsible, threat, cruelty and vengeance among its employees. The organizational values of Queensland are ambiguous as they are in conflict with individual values such as care and sympathy, honesty, integrity and professionalism. This has impacted negatively on the main goal the organization, which is deliverance of quality patient care services. The bullying, harassment and intimidation of patients has led to deterioration in terms of health and even death of some patients, whereas, buying and victimization of medical staff has caused many staff to resign leading to shortage of workforce. This has lead to budgetary and workload pressure contributing to a less satisfactory working environment and worsening of tribal behaviors. Bullying and intimidation is a very bad practice as it has severe effect on the organization; it leads to waste of time and resources, resulting to budget constrains. The organizational culture of Queensland is not result-based as employees are not accountable for their results. The organizational culture of Queensland does not have open and transparent communication systems. It is characterized by an unwillingness to share information. As a result, the information released from the top management is not effectively conveyed to those at the front-line levels. The negative culture of Queensland health has resulted to reduced job satisfaction and staff commitment, losses of fund, bad reputation, and staff turnover. The weak culture of Queensland Health has made it not to achieve its goals and objectives. Conclusion and Recommendations From the above literature review, we find that managing culture is critical to enhancing organization performance. However, changing a strong culture like that of Queensland is quite difficult. Based on the academic literature review from this study, there are six key issues that managers need to address to develop a more developmental and performance oriented culture in their organization; Creating a climate for change: Cultural change can only be effective if it is applied to the relevant area requiring change or is linked to some organizational issue. To create a climate for change, it is vital to recognize the determinants of cultural behavior. The organization can use internal or external drivers to create a climate for cultural change (Bradley and Parker 2000). Partnership in the broader public sector can herald culture change in terms of modernizing the service through mutual union, management and employees participation in developments and initiatives. Greater open recruitment outside the Queensland Health can promote cultural change as it can bring in different opinions, norms and perspectives as opposed to the models of individuals being promoted through seniority (O’Farrell 2006). Leaders as champions: Leaders plays an integral role in culture change. A clear strategic leadership is important to ensure the consistency of organizational culture change. It is therefore important to select committed individuals to facilitate the change process. This should involves selecting individuals who know the organization very well, who are trustworthy and have the ability to manage communications and assist in facilitating the change process (Foster 2005). It is critical to conduct an in-depth training for these individuals since they don’t have a background in change management in order to prepare them for these roles. Strong leadership is key ingredient in motivating the change process and ensuring a cultural change is implemented and sustained (Schein 2004). Employee engagement and empowerment: To ensure that effective culture management and to align it with the cultural assumptions of the organization as a whole, it is imperative to engage and empower employees. To experience a successful cultural change, it is important to involve employees in decision making process. This makes them feel part and parcel of the process and can therefore willingly participate in the cultural change process (Sorensen 2002). Team orientation: Team working is critical to crossing existing barriers and to promote and disseminate new cultural traits. Teams provide a means for investing talent development through individual and organizational development. Team projects can be designed to promote the desired cultural attributes for the organization. Team working can also be used to criticize many existing management practices and procedures which do not promote the desired culture change. Team working with individuals and other organizations outside the organization may help to shift focus to the promotion of the desired culture (Schein 1990). Continuous monitoring and measurement: It is important to conduct periodic measurements of the culture to monitor the progress of the change process and identity areas which need adjustments. Focused groups discussions can also be established to find out whether people have developed the desired culture attributes. The culture needs identified should be regularly discussed in leadership conferences at both the local and corporate level to come up with possible solutions (Bradley and Parker 2006). Training, Rewards and recognition: To create cultural awareness, it is important to train employees on the desired cultural attributes. To sustain the desired culture attributes, it is important to continuously reinforce such behaviors by incorporating the desired culture behaviors with the evaluation process and giving rewards and promoting employees who displays such characters (Davies 2006). For new employees who are recruited into the organization should be oriented based on the desired culture attributes. In this way, the culture model can be constantly communicated and used as a basis for self-assessment (Corelli 2003). In conclusion, the importance of managing culture cannot be overlooked in terms of its effect on organizational performance. Leaders play a major role in managing and developing culture in organizations. Though creating a high performance culture is a very difficult and challenging process, it is the only way the organization can achieve a competitive advantage and excel in this time of great economic downturns. The end result is that the organization will manage to achieve its goals and objectives and hence become successful. References Bradley L and Parker R. 2000. Current organizational culture in Public sector management; does it reflect a move way from traditional bureaucratic cultures? Australian Journal of Public Management, 65:89-99. Bradley L and Parker R. 2001. Organizational culture in Public sector, Report for the Institute of Public Administration Australian, Australia: IPAA National. Bradley L. and Parker R. 2006. Does Australian Public sector staff have the kind of culture they need in the period of modern public management? Australian Journal of Public Management, 65:89-99. Corelli C. (2003). Creating a high performance culture of excellence. 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