Changing Culture

Changing culture in itself seems as though it would be easy. Get rid of the people that created the culture no longer desired. Bring people in that embrace the culture that is anticipated. The culture has changed, right?

Not so easy. When we changed ownership of our company over a year ago we wanted to make a few changes in culture. We knew we wanted major changes:

1. for the employees to feel as though they mattered and were heard
2. a shift in attitude to buying the best may be a better answer than buying the cheapest.  
3. quality was of utmost importance
4. if something was broke we wanted to fix it

The owners were all of this mindset. We went about our business of educating employees about quality, buying new things, improving equipment, and the building. We had lists from the employees of what they desired for us to fix and buy. Nearly every item on the list that was reasonable, was purchased. By fulfilling requests and through our attitude, we really felt that we were setting a good example for the desired culture. Yet, we found that some employees still do not feel included, some won’t tell us when parts break, and others still brush off quality.

It is difficult to know we still haven’t made a full impact, but the culture is slowly changing. It is evident in the laughter heard through the building, the productiveness of the employees, and the overall quality of jobs that are shipped. It is joyous to see that the culture is changing, but it was not easy and we are not all the way there yet.  However, the results are so worth it.

Read about some historical transformations in this article:
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121106193412-1213-why-relationships-matter-i-to-the-we