• Huron Companies
    • Innosight
    • Studer Education
  • Submit RFP
  • Careers
  • Technology Partners
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Favorites
Huron Logo Huron Logo
  • Expertise
    • Business Operations
    • Care Transformation
    • Consumer Transformation
    • Digital
    • Organizational Transformation
    • Research Enterprise
    • Strategy & Innovation
    • Upcoming Huron Events

      View Events
  • Industry
    • Education
    • Energy & Utilities
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Industrials & Manufacturing
    • Life Sciences
    • Public Sector
    • See All
    • We collaborate with the best and brightest in technology.

      Learn More About Our Partners
  • Our Experts
    • View All Expert Bios
    • Find an expert specialized in your industry.

      Book a Speaker
  • Insights
    • Articles
    • Case Studies
    • Research
    • Get the latest insights and updates from our experts.

      View All Insights
  • Investor Relations
    • News
    • Events
    • Financial
    • Stock Info
    • Corporate Governance
    • See All
    • Learn more about Huron and our most recent financial results.

      Investor Presentation
  • Contact Us
  • Expertise
    Expertise
    Business OperationsCare TransformationConsumer TransformationDigitalOrganizational TransformationResearch EnterpriseStrategy & Innovation

    Upcoming Huron Events

    View Events
  • Industry
    Industry
    EducationEnergy & UtilitiesFinancial ServicesHealthcareIndustrials & ManufacturingLife SciencesPublic SectorSee All

    We collaborate with the best and brightest in technology.

    Learn More About Our Partners
  • Our Experts
    Our Experts
    View All Expert Bios

    Find an expert specialized in your industry.

    Book a Speaker
  • Insights
    Insights
    ArticlesCase StudiesResearch

    Get the latest insights and updates from our experts.

    View All Insights
  • Investor Relations
    Investor Relations
    NewsEventsFinancialStock InfoCorporate GovernanceSee All

    Learn more about Huron and our most recent financial results.

    Investor Presentation
  • Careers
    Careers
    Join Our Talent CommunitySearch Open PositionsBenefits
  • About Huron
    About Huron
    The Huron DifferenceOur People & ValuesMaking an ImpactOur ResultsInvestor RelationsLocations
  • Help & Support
    Help & Support
    Contact UsSubmit an RFPBook a Speaker
  • Privacy
    Privacy
    Privacy StatementTerms & ConditionsCookies PolicyFraudulent OffersLabor Condition Applications
  • Contact Us
  • Favorites
    Recent Favorites
    You have no saved content.

Expect the Unexpected: How Leaders Can Evolve Their Organizational Culture in Turbulent Times

Favorite Bookmark

Angus Beveridge, Sophie Hall

Download Email Subscribe Print

Historically, many business leaders have attempted to manage the unexpected by focusing their efforts on contingency plans, which typically outline information like the cascade of leadership communication, IT and business continuity actions. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated that while these plans may be suitable for addressing short-term disruption, they do not provide a long-term road map for navigating turbulent environmental or industry change. The magnitude and unexpected impacts of the current climate are greater than traditional contingency plans can accommodate. Beyond emergency process changes and increased resources, business leaders need to rapidly transform their organizational cultures.

COVID-19 forced organizations and employees to adapt to a significantly more distributed workforce, virtual work arrangements and a departure from conventional social connections. While most organizations will not face challenges on this scale regularly, there are interesting cultural lessons to learn from this experience.

Effectively redefining an organization’s culture sets up teams to thrive during any period of uncertainty. To address the tectonic shifts that so many businesses confront, from life sciences firms accommodating new, more personalized treatment paradigms to healthcare providers’ shift toward delivering care across new alternative settings, leaders must prioritize cultural transformation and focus on the change leadership skills that are critical during moments of disruption.

A Deliberate Approach to Cultural Transformation

Leaders are often valued for and pressured to make swift decisions. But even in turbulent times, it’s critical to understand what it is you are attempting to solve before taking action. Adapting an organization’s culture in response to external challenges requires leaders to:

  1. Diagnose the attributes of your current internal culture.
  2. Understand the nature and impact of the external forces compelling change.
  3. Identify and acknowledge the changes that need to be made in order to be successful.
  4. Plan interventions that will encourage the requisite changes in employee behavior, mindsets and beliefs.

The reality that most global business leaders face is often one of elaborate organizational systems with multiple stakeholders, multiple agendas and vast amounts of data.

Using the following framework can simplify complex organizational systems by creating a shared language everyone can use to diagnose the current culture and design a future state. This approach will significantly improve the chances of creating sustainable cultural change, even once the initial momentum of transformation dissipates.

A graphic that depicts the relationships between various aspects of cultural transformation.

The type of cultural evolution an organization needs typically depends on the speed of external disruptive forces and an organization’s internal capacity to adapt and thrive in a new environment. For example, organizations reacting to an acute health emergency need the ability to quickly design new offerings based on their core business and to communicate new ways of working internally. Enabling these changes demands an internal operating model that can withstand complicated and complex cultural frames. Cultures that feel comfortable or chaotic are unlikely to help the people within them be or feel successful during uncertain times.

Shifting from one cultural frame to another is not a simple task. It requires the right level of executive leadership focus and attention.

Comfortable

  • Patterns capture repetitive sets of activities and behaviors which work well and are commonly understood.
  • The future is predictable and success is clearly understood.
  • Applying best practices helps drive efficiency.
  • Feels comfortable and safe.

1. Preparing to Thrive in a Complicated Environment

Likely trigger: New competitor or customer groups emerging

There are many examples of incumbent companies becoming complacent due to their dominant market position. This usually occurs when leadership teams maintain a strong internal focus on efficiency and preserving the status quo, but are less attuned to subtle market changes and new industry entrants — until they begin materially affecting the organization.

One high-profile example of this thinking is Blockbuster, which was approached by Netflix in 2000 with an offer to purchase them for $50 million — when the media newcomer saw an opportunity to blend the best of both organization’s core capabilities. Netflix was deemed too small and niche by the Blockbuster board, who had not recognized the early signs of interest in subscription-based content and missed an opportunity to evolve. At its peak in 2004 the company employed approximately 84,000 people worldwide and by 2010 they were forced to file for bankruptcy.

Complicated

  • Patterns of successful existing and new activities and behaviors are detectable.
  • Available choices are visible and the end goal is clear.
  • Expert support is the answer.
  • Feels supportive and challenging.

Once disruption begins directly influencing operations and market share, organizations must adapt their comfortable culture to embrace a much more complicated environment. Leaders need a new approach, gathering data and expertise to help understand how the external environment has evolved, encourage internal conversations that challenge the current wisdom and generate new ideas, and perhaps even reallocate or restrict resources to spark innovation.

2. Positioning for Growth in a Complex Environment

Likely trigger: Shifting customer behavior and internal business models

Complex

  • Patterns of successful activities and behaviors coded after the event.
  • Choices are ambiguous and success is constantly changing.
  • Consistent learning is the only way to survive.
  • Feels entrepreneurial.

Across industries, the ways customers interact with businesses — from retail and financial services to healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations — is shifting fast. These changes will require organizations to develop new, flexible operating models that address evolving consumer preferences and needs. Leaders must emphasize the importance of funding and pursuing experiments that are “safe to fail” rather than attempting to impose a predefined course of action. They will also need to embrace ambiguity for a period of time to allow new opportunities to surface.

For instance, retail banks are continually evolving their operating models to align with customers’ expectations for greater digital access and integration with emerging fintech services. Newer online banks can deliver rapid customer service and different targeted offers to encourage customers to switch banks, directly challenging traditional financial institutions. Many incumbent banks’ models rely on building long-term customer loyalty through personal, high-touch relationships, which historically demanded an extensive physical branch presence and a suite of standard offerings.

Chaotic

  • No organizational cohesion or structure.
  • Contradictory activities and behaviors thrive.
  • There is an immediate threat to short- and long-term survival (crisis mode).
  • Feels unmanageable and frightening.

From a cultural standpoint, banks should acknowledge higher levels of customer churn and increase their multichannel capabilities in order to attract and meet customers where they are.

Whether adapting to anticipated or unexpected change, most leaders have the strategic planning experience to design imperatives and associated activities that will guide their organizations. The greater challenge is encouraging the people throughout an organization to behave in different ways and buy in to the new business models that are necessary to survive in the short and long term. By developing a consistent way of describing cultural evolution, leaders equip employees with the information and clarity they need to reshape their individual actions and attitudes in the future.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Cultural transformation must be a priority in order to maintain business continuity and growth during and after periods of turbulence. To do so:

Think differently.

Recognize the need to expand contingency plans beyond financial, operational and technological factors, accounting for ways to preserve employee engagement and adaptability.

Plan differently.

Regularly assess the organization’s current culture, taking into consideration the variety of social or competitive trends that indicate an opportunity to transform.

Act differently.

Develop a shared language all leaders and stakeholders can reference to simplify the process of identifying, planning and reinforcing cultural change.

Favorite Bookmark
JS Inject Download Email Subscribe Print
Organizational Transformation Life Sciences Diagnostics MedTech Other Life Sciences Pharmaceuticals Tools and Services Biotechnology

Related Work

  • Market Access Innovation Requires a New Leadership Approach

    Read More

    The competencies and success metrics of market access leaders must evolve for pharmaceutical businesses to overcome volatility and promote continuous change.

  • COVID-19: Change Management and Leadership During Times of Uncertainty

    Read More

    Ensure your healthcare organization is ready to act in times of uncertainty. Optimize performance and mobilize your teams to successfully respond to change.

  • Elevating Change Management: From Point Solution to Continuous Transformation

    Read More

    Leaders must shift organizational perceptions of change from an episodic solution to an ongoing strategy that becomes part of the organization's DNA.

View All

We use cookies on our website to provide you with a more personalized digital experience, enable website functionality and understand the performance of our site. You may review our Privacy Statement and our Cookies Policy. By using this site you agree to our use of cookies. I Accept

  • Expertise
    • Business Operations
    • Care Transformation
    • Consumer Transformation
    • Digital
    • Organizational Transformation
    • Research Enterprise
    • Strategy & Innovation
  • Industry
    • Education
    • Energy & Utilities
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Industrials & Manufacturing
    • Life Sciences
    • Public Sector
  • About Huron
    • The Huron Difference
    • Our People & Values
    • Making an Impact
    • Our Results
    • Investor Relations
    • Locations
  • Help & Support
    • Contact Us
    • Submit an RFP
  • Careers
    • Search Open Positions
    • Join Our Talent Community
    • Our Commitment
  • Legal
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Studer Education: Subscription Product Terms of Use
    • Cookies
    • Fraudulent Offers
    • Labor Condition Applications
Huron Logo
  • LinkedIn Icon
  • Twitter Icon
  • Facebook Icon
  • Instagram
  • Youtube Icon

© 2022 Huron Consulting Group Inc. and affiliates. Huron is a global consultancy and not a CPA firm, and does not provide attest services, audits, or other engagements in accordance with standards established by the AICPA or auditing standards promulgated by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (“PCAOB”). Huron is not a law firm; it does not offer, and is not authorized to provide, legal advice or counseling in any jurisdiction.