Leading at a Higher Level

Chapter 13Managing a Successful Cultural Transformation

Garry Demarest, Chris Edmonds,and Bob Glaser

Look closely at the operations of any high performing organization, and you are bound to find a strong and distinct culture. While most people have heard the term and it has been written about widely,¹ culture can be a slippery concept to describe. As we indicated in Chapter 2, “The Power of Vision,” we define culture as the context in which all practices exist. It is the organization’s personality; it’s “how things are done around here.” When we talk about an organization’s culture, we are referring to the values, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and practices of the organizational members.

In our experience, most members of an organization typically ...