by Sara Ramelb and supported by Dr. Michael Cherry
Culture change is one of the most challenging and frequently attempted transformations in organizations. Whether resulting from a merger, change in leadership or other evolving industry needs, it is a social shift against the loss of competitiveness. While senior leadership vision and commitment is key, a broad movement and co-creation from every level of the organization will be required. Crucially, a significant future state vision will need to be successfully envisioned, communicated, translated to specific behaviors and measures to ensure their adoption and effectiveness, and realized through new ways of working, mindsets, beliefs and organizational documentation. The role that coaching in particular can play in supporting these changes has not been specifically studied. Research on the various elements involved are examined in this paper, and conclusions about the effectiveness of coaching in this process are proposed.
Culture defined
The study of organizational culture has long routes across disciplines, but has been dominated by the model of Organizational culture defined by Edward Schein (1985). His model defines the unspoken beliefs that influence how people in an organization interact with each one another and their work. Schein (1990) defines culture as:
what a group learns over a period of time as that group solves its problems of survival in an external environment and its problems of internal integration. Such learning is simultaneously a behavioral, cognitive, and an emotional process. Extrapolating further from a functionalist anthropological view, the deepest level of culture will be the cognitive in that the perceptions, language, and thought processes that a group comes to share will be the ultimate causal determinant of feelings, attitudes, espoused values, and overt behavior (p.111)
Schein’s model states that culture simultaneously occurs at three levels: observable artifacts, such as policy documents; espoused values, such as the punchy attributes posted on an organization’s “about me” section of their website; and underlying assumptions, or the vast unspoken rules that dictate how work is done, what is rewarded and eschewed (Schein, 1990). If one were to imagine this cultural model as an iceberg, the artifacts are the visible part sticking out of the water, while espoused values are what is lurking just below, foundational to them, and the vast unseen body of the iceberg sinking into the depths of the ocean, deeply rooted and difficult to alter, are the assumptions.
In providing a clear definition and model for study and influencing culture, Schein’s model has become central to our understanding of culture. A moderate adaptation and build upon this model can be found in Hatch’s (1993) Cultural dynamics model. This model breaks out symbols from artifacts to add a fourth core component – and the roles of meaning and interpretation to symbolism – to Schein’s original three elements, and shifts the focus from inherited elements to the dynamic interplay between elements. This model does not contradict Schein’s, instead proposing a more complex, process-based understanding of organizational culture (p.661) and specifically how a person’s always-occuring reaction, interpretation, cognition and emotional responses to these elements is itself an active component of culture having both forward (proactive/prospective) and backward (retrospective/retroactive) components (p.687).
Change Management Defined
Dominant change management theories indicate that there are certain predictable, proactive steps that organizations can take to increase the likelihood of successful employee changes. Lewin (1958) identified a three-step process people must go through. The process begins with an ‘unfreezing’ of the behaviors associated to the current state, only then can ‘change’ occur. Finally, this is followed by a ‘refreezing’ of the new behaviors. This theory is in many ways the foundation for the dominant theories of Kotter (1996, 2014, 2020) and Hiatt (2006) that form the basis of most change management in practice within organizations today: Kotter is frequently referred to as the “grandfather of modern change management” and Hiatt’s ADKAR model at Prosci is used by 80% of the Fortune 100 companies in the United States (Prosci).
The first stage of unfreezing is marked by a need to communicate and build a sense of urgency. This is reflected in Prosci’s ADKAR model of individual change steps: Awareness and Desire. The Prosci model is linear and cumulative, and states that people must first understand what is changing and why before they can desire the change, or minimally, make the personal decision to change. That desire is strongly influenced by the degree to which senior leaders are engaging in the ABCs of sponsorship: to Actively and visibly participating, Building a coalition, and Communcating directly with employees a compelling “Why?”, “Why now?”, And “What’s in it for Me (WIIFM)?” (Hiatt, 2006) These same broad strokes are present in Kotter’s (2020) updated steps 1-4: Create Urgency; Build a Guiding Coalition; Form a Strategic Vision; Enlist a Volunteer Army. These steps outline how leaders develop a compelling message of change and enlist the thought capital and buy-in of leaders throughout the organization, and at all levels, of the organization to meaningfully participate in both co-creating and executing the change.
Lewin’s second stage, change, is equivalent to Prosci’s “K and A” stages of Knowledge and ability. Prosci distinguishing between these often interchangeably used concepts to distinguish between what it means to know something, often gained through formal training and to have the ability to execute it independently at ‘go-live’, often gained through practice and practical application (Hiatt, 2006). Again, this foundational concept is found in Kotter’s steps 5 and 6, Remove Barriers and Generate Short-term Wins. Kotter (2014) focuses more on the organizational lens than the individual, outlining steps to remove the historical barriers to successful change and celebrating ‘quick wins’ in order to build confidence and momentum in the change.
Finally, Lewin’s Refreezing is equivalent to Prosci’s final stage of the ADKAR model, Reinforcement. This stage is about ensuring sustainment of the change by creating mechanisms and milestones that are meaningful to the individual and align the individual’s incentives with those of the institution post-change (Hiatt, 2006). Kotter’s final 2 steps, Sustain Acceleration and Institute Change (formerly, the last step was called: Anchor Changes in Corporate Culture). The key distinction here is that Kotter’s step focuses more on drawing the intellectual connection between the change and the overarching strategy it supports. “A key challenge is grafting the new practices onto roots that may be old but still effective, while killing off the inconsistent pieces”. (Kotter, 2020, p. 40).
Changing Culture
Considerable research has supported the tenants of Change management outlined above as proven to improve the rate of successful change (Sanger, 2008). However, large-scale transformational change, such as the multi-year journeys needed to meaningfully influence a change in organizational culture (Schein, 1992) have an abysmal success rate (Prosci, n.d.) All change is difficult for organizations and faces employee resistance that is natural and hard-wired into the human psychology – humans resist change and do so with more tenacity as it threatens the basic social constructs of the workplace such as a sense of status, certainty and fairness (Neuroleadership Institute, n.d.). Culture change is uniquely challenging to change:
Culture is very hard to change when it is deeply held. It is often the product of a
long history in which people develop personal stakes in the current way of doing
business…. An organization’s culture provides consistency and predictability for
its members. It manifests what is important, valued, and accepted. It derives from
a shared set of values and assumptions about a wide range of solutions to broad
human issues. (Levin & Sanger, 1994, pp. 176-177)
Because organizations are both social, symbolic and historical constructs and simultaneously simply the sum of their human employee parts, it should benefit the organization to approach its culture change as a series of individual changes as well as an organizational one. And because the relationship between individuals and their organizational culture can be emotional as well as intellectual, desired changes within this dynamic interplay should benefit from approaches that maximize emotional connections as well as an intellectual approach to change. “Culture is an organizational phenomenon and an informal coordination mechanism is made of shared minds and values of the individuals and, thus, connects both the personal and organizational level” (Freiling, J. and Hanno, F., 2010, p. 158)
The role of coaching in organizational culture change
All workplaces involve processes of educating and indoctrinating their new employees in “the way things work around here”. This is both the formal onboarding and training that ensures new employees understand how to log into their computer system and the official position on ethical behavior. However, it is also the unspoken organizational culture, such as: “… a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems” (Schein, 2004. p. 17).
Just as coaching has been shown to be a very effective way to help leaders and employees obtain new soft skills, it can be a tool to help them develop a specific set of behaviors they may be lacking as they align to a new cultural direction. Wilhelm (1992) argues that the organizational culture serves as the consistent element, and that it is employee behavior that shifts to meet its emerging needs. The Development pipeline (Hicks & Peterson, 1999 cited in Peterson, 2006) approach to coaching perfectly aligns the ADKAR model of individual change to a coaching methodology: (Insight = awareness; Motivation = Desire; Capabilities = Knowledge; Real-world practice = Ability; Accountability = Reinforcement). Both models sere as both approach and diagnostic, meaning they outline a predictable pattern of behavior and serve as an assessment to understand where in the model an individual is “stuck” or lacking. Again, both models are understood as cumulative and advise practitioners to begin their focus on where the client is “stuck” in the model, and progress from there.
In his book, Helping (2009), Schein effectively describes an inquiry-based coaching approach, as defined by the ICF, as the appropriate method for consultative assistance in assisting organizations to meet their goals. There are a number of ways that coaching can help the organization to achieve its long-term and ambitious goals while helping its employees to develop the desire for change as well as the requisite skillset to be capable of succeeding in the new environment: Skill building, team building, performance management building and change capability building.
Coaching as skill builder
Levassesur (2009) argues that skills are little more than intentionally developed behaviors, and therefore building on the work of the Lewin (1951), it is the interaction of a person and their environment that defines their skills. Expanding on this logic, if a leader engaged in a culture change were to alter the environment by employing the proven change management. Techniques already discussed – with frequent communication of a compelling vision, with invitations to meaningfully participate and co-create the future state, the organization has provided the requisite elements to support their development (p. 567 – 568).
If the organization then goes on to provide coaching to support – now that they possess the aware and desire this change outlined in the ADKAR model – their ability to grow into the knowledge, skills, abilities, mindsets and behaviors aligned to and deemed necessary by the culture change – they have dynamically shaped the culture to include skills that are especially important to the employee’s leadership development, the benefit of the larger organization, and the evolving definition of how the culture is experienced (Hatch, 1993). Coaching has been shown to be particularly effective in this type of skills development as it focuses both on self-reflection and capability building (Levassesur, 2009, p. 569).
Coaching as team builder
Integral to success in any organization, whether it is looking to maintain its status quo or evolve its culture, is the ability to form and succeed and in teams. Four stages of group development identified by Tuckman (1995) are forming, or getting to know one another, a time marked by distance and politeness; Storming, or working through conflict, a time marked by establishing a team culture; Norming, when group cohesion is developed, a time marked by cohesion and team identity, and Performing, when roles are flexible and functional, a time marked by trust, cooperation and achievement. A transformation to a new culture will often be accompanied by significant changes to organizational design, process and ways of working and team composition and expectations.
Wilhelm (1992) argues all corporations have access to the same technology, capital, and strategic capability, so competitive advantage must come from employees and their ability to work together. Underlying the ability to be a good team member often requires development of new and complex behaviors: improved communication skills, sharing a broader knowledge of the business, and willingness to subjugate self-serving tendencies for the good of the larger organization. All of these skills are critical in gaining competitive advantage through the organization (p. 72). Equally important is the ability to develop these skills in teams. Levassesur (2009) argues that advanced soft skills of this type require a more sophisticated approach than does enhancing self-awareness or improving communication skills. Self-study and training are not sufficient. Coaching in the art of group facilitation, often provided by an OD or change management consultant, is essential to the development of good group and (or) team skills. Augmenting such expert change management coaching with mentoring by a manager skilled in facilitation can provide, additional input for developing excellent group skills (p. 570-571).
Coaching can support a truly positive team environment – one that respects the needs of the individual, the team, the organization and the leader. This team environment recognizes that employees have inherent existence needs for security and relatedness, but also for personal growth and fairness (Hughes, et. al., 1995). Teams develop in predictable ways that involves some conflict and natural resolution to perform at their best (Tuckman, 1995). Most importantly, the limited research has shown that selecting the right team members and skillsets for teams within decentralized organizational structures, empowered employees and a culture that encourages experimentation while insisting upon high standards can increase organizational effectiveness as well (Nahavandi, 2015).
Coaching as an element of performance management
One of the ways that this type of skill-building and development can be framed with the employees is through performance management. Mone and London (2009) defines an engaged employee as someone who feels involved, committed, passionate, and empowered and demonstrates those feelings in work behavior. Increased employee engagement benefits the organization with better work outputs and retention as well as driving a 23% increase in profitability (Boysen, 2024). In their work they also found evidence for an expanded view of performance management – defined as the interrelated processes, including goal setting, feedback, recognition, coaching, development and learning, and appraisal, all based on a foundation of trust and empowerment, with a constant focus on communication – as the primary vehicle for creating an engaged workforce. (Mone, Edward, et al., 2011. P. 206) Throughout this work effective coaching is suggested as a way for managers to support employee learning and growth. This work and suggests three areas of coaching focus: helping employees adapt, improving performance, and developing potential (p. 209).
Each of these can be adapted to fit the frame of culture change within the performance management framework. If individual goal setting exercises are expanded to include professional objectives around alignment to living the culture, there will be a benefit to coaching to support employees adapting to the change in cultural values and how they are expressed in behavior. There may be a need to improve behavior, or at the very least, to improve how the employee understands and expresses the preferred behaviors. Finally, there will be an opportunity within a culture transformation for each person to re-explore their relationship with the organization. Specifically, a coach can help them with a future-facing look to their own potential in the ‘new world order’ and what a new roadmap of their future might look like.
Coaching as catalyst for positive culture change
Coaching is an obvious support that leaders should build into any organization’s culture transformation plans. In their meta-analysis literature review of managerial coaching outcomes Kim, S. et. al., (2013) found that employees who received coaching from their managers and leaders had much better outcomes. They became clearer in role understanding, more satisfied with their work, better committed to their career and organization, and they importantly they outperformed others who did not have coaching. This type of commitment will be especially valuable at a time of culture transformation when an employee’s emotional connection to the organization can be tested. Coaching has been shown to be most effective for organizations in certain circumstances such as times of transition, specifically changes to organizational culture (Feldman, 2001). This may be due to the increased sense of relatedness and autonomy that can come from the coaching relationship.
A key success factor identified in culture change, along with proven change leadership behaviors of communicating a powerful vision establish to urgency, building a coalition of sponsors and empowered change agents (Kotter, 1995; Hiatt, 2006), is the modeling behavior and reinforcing it though teaching and coaching (Stephens cited in Sanger, 2008). This echoes the critical role that leaders play in any successful change (Kotter ,1996, 2014, 2020; and Hiatt, 2006) and specifically in culture change. Culture change is uniquely challenging in its complexity, duration and failure rates. A better preparation for employees that realizes the many benefits coaching can bring to skill building, team building, improved performance management. This paper concludes that coaching is a strong contender to improve the success rate of culture change, and should be studied further.
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