WITH A GRADUALLY worsening skills shortage and an increasingly competitive war for talent in many sectors, being able to build a corporate culture that attracts and retains talented people is rapidly emerging as an important criterion for an organisation’s financial success
by Craig Donaldson
WITH A GRADUALLY worsening skills shortage and an increasingly competitive war for talent in many sectors, being able to build a corporate culture that attracts and retains talented people is rapidly emerging as an important criterion for an organisation’s financial success.
According to visiting US expert in values and cultural transformation, Richard Barrett, executives and employees are searching for organisations that will support them in their personal and professional growth, and similarly, customers are choosing to purchase products and services from companies who share their values.
As a result, companies around the world are increasingly focusing on building their cultural capital, and those organisations that are able to create cultural capital through values-based leadership will be at the frontier of competitive advantage.
Speaking at the recent 2005 Human Excellence Forum in Sydney, organised by the Institute of Human Excellence, Barrett said HR professionals are the facilitators of the process by which cultural capital is created.
Citing the McKinsey War for Talent study which found that culture and values were rated the highest scoring factor for talent retention among 200 executives from 77 major companies, he said the CEO and all senior directors must be the owners and drivers of the cultural capital.
“The CEO and senior management team have to be personally committed to building a world-class culture in order to create the conditions that attract and retain talented people,”he said.
It was also important to recognise that the culture of an organisation is a reflection of the personalities of the CEO and the leadership group. As such, organisational transformation begins with the personal transformation of this group.
“Organisations don’t transform; people do,” Barrett said. “Each member of the senior team must be committed to his or her own behavioural change. Without this commitment nothing will happen.”
However, HR professionals face a number of challenges in the process of any cultural change, he said.
The principal challenges are building the case for cultural transformation with the leadership group and building commitment among the leadership group for their participation in workshops that focus on personal alignment and group cohesion.
Another challenge is changing the organisational systems and processes so they reflect the espoused values and behaviours – or structural alignment, he said.
The objective of personal alignment, group cohesion and structural alignment is to build group cohesion and group resilience. In building group resilience, there were two aspects: cultural resilience and structural resilience, Barrett added.
“Cultural resilience involves heightening the group’s capacity for communication, coordination and cooperation,” he said.
“Structural resilience involves building the organisation’s operational capacity to withstand threats and shocks.”
In order to secure stakeholder buy-in for values and cultural change, there must be a compelling reason for change, Barrett said.
“Generally speaking the issues lie with the senior executives and managers, who operate from self-interest and are unwilling to let go of their power and authority. In most situations staff are ready for change,” he said.
The best way to secure stakeholder buy in for cultural change is through mapping the personal values, current culture values and desired culture values to different levels of organisational consciousness. These range from the basics of financial stability and employee safety through to a more socially responsible and aware long-term perspective.
The results of this assessment would provide significant insights into what is working and not working in the organisation, he said.
