Change of Corporate Culture

The executive board of a hierarchical organisation with over 2,000 employees wanted to dissolve the silo structure of a business unit and to change the corporate culture. The reason for the reorganisation was the low effectiveness and efficiency of the division due to, among other things, duplicate structures. In addition, the board intended to bundle existing innovative capacities so that the division could develop new business ideas and new digital products.

One challenge was to break down silo structures in which employees had settled for decades. Fear of losing status, responsibilities and comforts spread among them. In fact, members of middle management had to rethink and relinquish competencies, and long-standing animosities came to the surface. As a result, only a minority of the employees in this business unit were in favour of the new culture of collaboration envisaged by the management.

First of all, it had to be made unmistakably clear that the board wanted the reorganisation and that there was no way of getting around. We then addressed the fears and reactance of middle management. To this end, our concept was to give them as much freedom of action as possible in shaping the path towards the given target. Therefore, we had implemented working groups on concrete questions. Other members of the staff could also participate voluntarily.

Developing a mission statement

Regarding the change of corporate culture, we first analysed the existing culture with narrative methods. Within the framework of a joint mission statement, the project team developed the vision of the business unit. It should also provide middle management with answers to the questions “Why?” and “Why now?”. The managers finally anchored the mission statement in their teams. They did so by identifying behaviour, KPIs, rules, parameters that ran counter to the new mindset. That’s how we laid the basis for the change of corporate culture.