As the text indicates, companies tend not to give explicit attention to cultural issues when planning and implementing organisational change. Laurent advocates a dual approach to address this situation.

What type of leader is required in this approach and what does that leader need to do? Where does this approach belong in Table 10.2 (Schein’s ‘mechanisms of cultural change’)?

Table 10.2

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Natural evolution Self-guided evolution through organisational therapy Managed evolution through hybrids, 'revolution' through outsiders Planned change and organisational development Technological seduction Change through scandal, explosion of myths Incrementalism Coercive persuasion Turnaround Reorganisation and rebirth The culture will evolve a culture of what works best if the organisation is not undergoing too much stress from the environment. This may also involve what Schein calls a 'general evolution' to the next stage of the organisation's development through diversification and growing complexity. It may also involve 'specific evolution' where subcultures may emerge around the increasing number of subunits in the organisation The organisation gains insight into own strengths and weaknesses, e.g. by using an outside consultant to 'unfreeze' the organisational culture and so allowing dramatic changes to occur This approach is useful where the culture needs to change, but the organisation may lose its identity as a result. People from inside the company are used in key positions, people who realise there is a need for change but may meet less resistance than outsiders Differentiation through growth and increasing complexity may lead to increasing sub-cultures coming into conflict. A consultant initiates a change programme to reduce conflict, one that involves some sort of culture change Technological changes may bring about cultural change because they change behaviour patterns and compel the organisation to examine the way it carries out business Change may occur through discrepancies between the values that are espoused by the organisation and the practices that it actually performs. Whistle-blowers' may reveal, for example, how ethical standards are being bypassed in certain operations, safety procedures ignored, promotion policies undermined. Such exposures often lead to assumptions being reconsidered and cultural changes being made Cultural change is implemented gradually over several years and is hardly noticed. Recruitment and selection policies, for example, may result in all key positions in a company being filled by people who act according to assumptions that are different to those of the old culture A culture turnaround, usually in a mature culture, where change agents - possibly senior managers - challenge old assumptions, put forward new ones and give key managers psychological safety by rewarding them for embracing the new assumptions A turnaround individual or team has a clear idea of where the organisation must go and how it is to get there. Some or all of the above mechanisms may be used while the present culture is unfrozen and psychological safety offered to reduce resistance An unusual occurrence, whereby the group that bears the old culture is removed and replaced by a new group and a fresh culture