Lewin’s three stage application
Evidence from case study
Unfreeze:
The cultural change program began with the management team completing an organisational culture questionnaire, developed by an international consulting company, to determine the preferred culture for the organisation.
Management and employees then completed a second organisational culture questionnaire to determine the actual operating culture.
Change/Transition:
Selected management initiatives were implemented to bridge gap between the preferred and actual operating culture.
These included:
• development of an agreed set of organisational values
• active encouragement of problem solving and project development through cross-functional work teams
• introduction of skip-level interviews which involved employees speaking with their manager's manager on a regular basis
• monthly meetings of staff from all levels with the Managing Director -all staff can volunteer to participate, with five or six randomly selected each month
• review of reward and recognition systems to ensure preferred cultural behaviours are encouraged
• annual 'Blue Zone days' in which preferred cultural behaviours are explored and clarified through fun and engaging activities. Blue Zone" refers to the constructive styles on the Organisational Culture Inventory (Gones et al. 2006), which defined preferred cultural attributes.
Refreeze:
Cultural surveys are now conducted every two years and there has been a steady improvement towards a more open, collaborative and constructive organisational culture.
Change Models
Kotter 8 Step
Evidence from case study
Step 1 Create Urgency:
Open communication of the survey results ensured that the challenges were not hidden and staff were encouraged to take responsibility for contributing to the development of a
