One of the biggest challenges organizations have when it comes to developing culture is that when push comes to shove, culture takes a back seat. You want to push that culture change project forward, but sales were off last quarter, so everyone focuses on sales. Or we need to roll out that new huge technology solution, so everyone focuses on that. Or that big “all hands on deck” event is coming up, so everyone focuses on that.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Even if you do need to focus on sales, technology, or events at various times, you should still be able to find a way to advance your priorities when it comes to culture development or change at the same time. What you need is a good culture roadmap.
We help all our culture coaching clients put together their roadmap, which includes a long-term culture vision (have less than 3% “bad” turnover annually), medium term priorities (build out our transparency architecture), annual focus areas (get full adoption of our new intranet), and even goals for the next three months (finish intranet requirements). When you are clear on your priorities, and how they all fit together, then you can push back when people say “we don’t have time for culture right now.” They may not have time for all of culture, but surely they can work around your quarterly priority around the intranet requirements, can’t they?
This way your culture change efforts don’t stall. Sometimes they take longer than you thought they might, but they don’t fail and you can maintain momentum. That’s what a culture roadmap can do for you.