When a company undergoes significant changes, managers may face employee reluctance. In most cases, this is a completely natural process, related to people not fully understanding the goals and tasks: what exactly needs to be changed and what direction to take.

In this situation, if managers are convinced that changes are difficult anyway, they may not even try to implement them—by providing additional explanations or seeking agreement. They say, "We're doing great just by surviving."

This very need for a balance between self-preservation and self-development is related to culture. How to deal with this?

1. The first step is to outline what we want to achieve.

2. The second step is to understand how this can be implemented. In this context, the topic of culture becomes relevant, as people often face the inability to realize what has been planned.

Therefore, the topic of culture should be approached through the transformation of complex things, optimization, and structures. And when it comes to implementing significant changes, we may see that the top team is actually not synchronized, despite the high professional level of its members. It is primarily about meanings and common agreements.

We must clearly understand why we are doing this. And here another important topic emerges—the interaction between teams. In Stanley McChrystal's book "Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World," the need to transform team thinking is discussed. After all, the first team is our own team. And if there is no alignment within it, there is no point in dealing with anything else.

With the scaling of companies, separate subcultures often appear. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage?

The presence of subcultures is not always a problem. However, they often remain unmanaged. When several subcultures coexist in an organization, this can lead to conflicting goals, and sometimes they start working against each other. This usually arises in the absence of a common strategy or vision.

At the same time, diversity of opinions can be one of the advantages. This is precisely the challenge for every organization: how to preserve the individuality and characteristics of teams without losing a common direction.
When we have a large holding with an international network, it is obvious that it is impossible to ignore regional and national characteristics. But this principle works not only in large-scale structures. Even when a company operates in one city, each manager in their department or direction brings their own style and approaches. The managerial position of "this doesn't suit us" regarding this diversity is also erroneous.

When we talk about culture, we usually mean an organization that generally works effectively. That is, most of its units and managers deliver results. And if a particular team is effective, we cannot deny that the culture formed within it is effective.
However, whatever the subcultures, there must be a core in the organization. A core of meanings, a core of culture. We always have reasons to respect the characteristics. The question is only how many we really need.

How to understand in which direction our culture should change? What questions should the owner or CEO ask themselves?

Strategy answers three key questions: where we are coming from, where we are going, and what we rely on. For me, this is also the vector of culture. Within this logic lies an important understanding: we need to be aware of our starting point and where we are now. It is here that the question of the image of the culture we are building arises.
The next question to ask is what we want to rely on moving forward. By answering these questions, we form the cultural dimension—the DNA of our culture.

How to understand that the current culture is no longer relevant for further growth?

Often companies strive to move to another level of development, but the internal culture, which once helped them grow, begins to hinder this movement. This can manifest in the decision-making style, informal structure, communication style, or in how new people are attracted to the company.

Therefore, before initiating changes, it is important to honestly check whether we have become our own limitation to development. For such reflection, it is worth asking a few questions:

— How do I perceive myself—and how am I perceived by others?
— What exactly are we building as an organization?
— How do my behavior and competencies support the transition to a new level?

If we really want to implement something new in the company, we ourselves will have to change. The leader or owner cannot remain the same as before. This is the classic point of transformation that every manager goes through sooner or later: the moment of honest recognition that perhaps it's time to take a step back, step out of an operational role, or even hand over management.

After all, true business transformation and growth are always accompanied by personal changes of the one who leads it.

Who is responsible for ensuring that a coherent or new culture emerges?

It is important to find those people who are already carriers of what we want to strengthen and cultivate. I call them value carriers. Often these are people who realize: the way they think and act really suits us. This is a great credit of trust, a form of recognition and encouragement for people.

How to set up the process so that the new culture becomes a systemic and sustainable part of the company?
To form a new culture, it is important to create an internal rhythm of cultural evolution. It is formed through an evolutionary team, which consists of carriers and custodians of culture—people who have not only leadership but also administrative status and real influence. That is why it is often decided that such a team mainly includes managers. At the same time, it is crucially important to ensure that these are precisely the managers who are truly suitable for this role.
The evolutionary team must have a designated person responsible for coordinating the process: someone who records agreements, schedules regular meetings, and tracks results. Managers must realize that they not only manage processes but also, through their own behavior, transmit unconscious messages to the entire organization.

A common misconception is that culture is the responsibility of HR. In reality, a culture transformation project should not be led by an HR director. This is a story of value carriers and management responsibility, so it should be taken beyond the HR function. At the same time, HR's participation in the evolutionary team is quite natural. It is especially valuable when the first person—the CEO or someone with real influence on others—is involved in this work.
So, culture is the responsibility of managers. In an ideal world—yes, but in practice, this does not always work. That is why a person must appear in the organization who realizes this responsibility as their function and understands: change management is not a separate project or an additional activity. After all, working with culture requires planning, organization, motivation, and control.

Change management is not a separate object or a topic for training. It is something that permeates all other management processes.

Why should we first think about values when we want to change the culture? And what to do when the desired culture does not align with the leader's values.

Each of us has our own psychological characteristics. Culture, however, is an abstraction. To work with it, we need something to grasp onto. At the same time, it is important to look at values from different angles. That is why I introduce the concept of value confusion. After all, when talking about values, we can mean anything: what is valuable to us personally; what is written on the website; what we aspire to but don't have yet; or something big, universal.
In Ukraine, what is often called "values" actually more closely resembles virtues—traits that people associate with correctness and ethics. In the program, I consciously do not separate these concepts, because among values there is always something deeply personal—what is truly important and significant for specific people. And we cannot ignore this even from purely pragmatic considerations.

It is also important to find what has already formed in the organization. What we are proud of. What we can rely on. This is the question: "Where from? Where to? Relying on what?" Only after this—after we understand what is important to people and what we are proud of as an organization—can we move on to changes. It is then that we ask ourselves what we are missing. We need to crystallize the essence and name the value that is really lacking now.
We must focus on what already exists and works. On what is important to people. This is the DNA of the organization—and it needs to be highlighted and recorded: we do not touch this.

Values have two dimensions: conscious and unconscious. Often, when a company is created, values are not discussed. For a certain time, the organization grows and attracts people with similar values. Or it attracts very different ones—and then, when the company begins to scale, manageability becomes more difficult. It is at this moment that it becomes clear that something needs to be agreed upon.

For unconscious values to become conscious, they need to be talked about. Values need to be named—and then they become stronger. At this moment, they take the form of words and simultaneously become a management decision.

How to understand that culture needs to be changed?

To understand that something is wrong with the culture, one should first pay attention to one's own observations and how the majority of people in the company experience it. Sometimes it's just a subtle feeling that "something is wrong": processes begin to take too much energy, something irritates, slows down movement, or creates tension.

At the same time, it is important to distinguish whether it is a problem of culture in general or merely the personal perception of an individual—for example, someone who came from another corporate culture and has not yet adapted. It happens that inside the organization, everyone is proud of certain aspects—stability or experience—while someone "from the outside" perceives this as stagnation or a lack of dynamics.

That is why one should not break what works well and supports the company. However, when a common, collective understanding appears that something needs to be changed, this is already an important indicator. And it is important that someone dares to voice it first.

The next step is to ask a key question: does the current culture help us achieve our strategic goals? If the answer is negative, it is logical to start figuring out which specific elements of the current culture need updating.

When evaluating culture, it is important to look not only at declared values but also at everyday behavior—whether it truly supports the company's goals and facilitates forward movement. And only after this does it make sense to move on to changes.

Iryna Morzhova