When Organizations Need to Change Their Culture

Many reasons exist why an organization may come to a point of needing to change its internal culture. Some of these include patterns of abuse, patterns of fraud, patterns of betrayal among leadership, or patterns of racism, sexism, or phobias which lead to oppressing certain persons. 

If your organization is considering ways to change internal culture, here are some questions to help you focus and be effective in making important changes: 
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1. Have you consulted with persons most harmed or impacted by the previous cultural practices you are working to change? What, specifically, is their advise for what needs to change? 
2. If the changes you hope for take place, how will you know? And how will others know? What will have changed? Be specific. 
3. Are there amends that ought to take place, first, in order to enact change? If so, what are they? 
4. If you run into strong and differing opinions within your organization about changing culture, hosting debriefings or constructive, guided conversations may help to relieve tensions. This can be done by organizational leaders, but also may require a third party to more effectively facilitate these conversations. Will bringing in a third party to facilitate debriefings or constructive conversations help with relieving tensions? 
5. What specific measures need to be put in place to keep the organization moving forward in its goal of changing culture? 

​Keep in mind that the more specific you can be at the outset in making plans for cultural change, the more effective you can be. There are additional considerations to keep in mind, but these will help any organization begin to create an effective map forward. 

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​Rev. Dr. Kate Wiebe serves as the Executive Director of ICTG. She is an organizational health consultant and pastoral psychotherapist. She lives with her family in Santa Barbara, CA.