Use a Culture Roadmap to Keep Your Culture Change Moving

April 15, 2022
April 15, 2022 Jamie Notter

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.

See also  How Do You Change Culture from the Bottom Up?

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?

See also  The Unlikely Romance: Culture Change Meets AI

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.

Jamie Notter

Jamie is a co-founder and culture strategist at PROPEL, where he helps leaders create amazing workplace cultures that drive greater performance and impact. He brings thirty years of experience to his work designing and managing culture, and has specialized along the way in areas like conflict resolution and generations. Jamie is the co-author of four popular business books, including the award-winning Non-Obvious Guide to Employee Engagement, and his fall 2023 release, Culture Change Made Easy. He holds a Master’s in conflict resolution from George Mason and a certificate in Organization Development from Georgetown, where he serves as adjunct faculty.