How the right corporate mindset can drive the change of your organization

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

We all heard Peter Drucker saying these famous words. Why don´t we formulate this in a new, positive direction:

“The right mindset will foster the organizational growth and enable it to adapt quickly to new demands. The right mindset will drive the corporate and culture change for the success of the organization´s development.”

New perspectives for corporate development

Whenever a strategy update is presented to the staff, most organizations use power point slide decks — massively. The presentation which have been given to us for years to tweak and work on their visual look, all have these things in common, no matter of which industry they came from:

• They use a lots of numbers — which won’t be recognized by the people nor most understand their meaning.
• They adress the need of an organizational change by using the imperative as a direct language. Though we know about Drucker´s saying, we hardly see one CEO presentation addressing the need for cultural change.

It seems, that most of todays leadership is assuming that most of their employees can understand business strategy on slide decks as they do themselves and that communicating this content is the best choice to drive the change.

Will more of the same get the job finally done?

In most of the cases of our research, the reception of such an approach is very weak. Therefore we developed visual mindsets, based on the strategy, vision and mission of the companies, we work for. As we found out, these visuals strategy elements are very well adapted by the staff. Once the mindset is developed by intensive workshops and interviews, specific material is developed to the implementation. A roll-out often is combined with a larger visual campaign, training and facilitator guides and also feedback and other material for groups to work on the mindset and to reflect its major topics with their leadership, peers and within their department.

The mindset sets the basis for your strategy

Do you think, your organization is facing a major change on how you engage with customers, stakeholder and employees? Is your company facing the demand for major shifts on how you drive your business, on how you manage your portfolio and on how you develop, train and recruit your staff?

Then we first have to set the definition of our culture expectations right. Another slide deck will not get the job done, until you address the cultural barriers. The best way to do this is by defining a mindset and communicating this in a clear and positive language.

The we factor — building bridges and breaking silos

The mindset has the potential to enhance your business in various areas:

• Once the mindset addresses cultural barriers, you get into a dialogue and you will find new insights if you get your leadership to engage in the discussion. The mindset will give your staff a clear direction — the right tools will give your leadership a strong instrument to engage with their staff on a deeper level, such as: how do we engage towards customers, business partners, stakeholders? Which kind of behavior do we need, which kind of attitude is needed and in which areas do we need development — and where are we already champions
• The mindset will give your HR strategy a new set of definition for recruiting the right people, to avoid bad hiring and promotion decisions which lead to high cost.
• The mindset will give you a strong tool and wording for our employer branding. With your specific corporate mindset you can develop a unique asset for your HR marketing which goes far beyond buzz words and claims, that is used by your competition too. The mindset will demonstrate your partners, investors and customers, that you are really willing to face change on a deeper level and finally: that you care about your staff and you take responsibility about your organizational development on a cultural basis.
• Addressing a mindset requires to see the big picture. It will challenge your leadership and by this, it is also a great exercise to get everyone on the boat. It provides evidence, whether you share the same basis for corporate change and development. Once the basis has been settled, you can face the organizational challenges with a cultural united and committed leadership — and this will have a major positive impact for all of your strategic initiatives

“Mindset change is not about picking up a few pointers here and there. It’s about seeing things in a new way.” Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

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