Culture

Podcast Episode 40: Culture Change Masterclass with Karen Gill

3rd February 2020

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‘Companies that drive their culture are those whose values inform everything they do’

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This Episode: Culture Change Masterclass with Karen Gill

In this HR Uprising episode, we have our very first Masterclass focusing on culture change. Taking charge this week is our guest Karen Gill, a Culture Expert & Change Practitioner from 2 The Point.

Certainly, culture is part of the ‘Iceberg syndrome’. It is the stuff that sits below the surface, it’s what drives behaviour and drives decisions. You can’t touch it, you can’t feel it but it’s there and it becomes obvious every day.

Karen takes us through the process of culture change from discovery, through to action and the ways to successfully embed this within your organisation. In addition, she explains the role of HR in facilitating change with the sponsorship of senior management.

Therefore, this culture change masterclass is a great way to understand who needs to drive change and why it’s important that senior managers understand the journey that needs to be taken.

ACTUS ACADEMY: NEW E-LEARNING COURSE ON CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Valuable Resources

The Cultural Organisational Assessment Tool – Cameron & Quinn
Host of The HR Uprising Podcast, Lucinda Carney, is also the founder and CEO of Actus Software, where you can find additional free HR Resources: https://actus.co.uk/free-performance-management-resources/
Change Superhero Resources:
- Training: Virtual Change Superhero Training
- E-Learning: Actus Academy Change Management Course
- Book: How to be a Change Superhero – by Lucinda Carney
- Free Change Toolkit: www.changesuperhero.com
Join the HR Uprising LinkedIn Group

Key Takeaways

HR’s role in culture

Whilst we can be instrumental in creating the right environment, holding a mirror to the organisation the culture is the responsibility of management and the senior leadership team.
Furthermore, HR should be facilitating culture change within the organisation.

Discovery

When you are first called into a company it’s important to understand why you are there.
Do they know what they want to change?
Are they genuine about their cultural needs?
The collateral a company has will give you a sense of what the organisation has culturally.
What are the stories and success criteria across the different areas of the company?
In discovery, it’s about looking at a range of elements to gain a ‘complete picture’.
There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong culture, its what’s fit for purpose for the organisation.

Action

Once you have got to a point where you understand where the company wants to go then you can take action.
Culturally you can set a direction but the interpretation in different teams across the company can be quite different.
It’s about harnessing your senior managers to understand the journey that needs to be taken.

Embed

Having a list of things you are going to stop doing is as important as the list of things you are going to do.
Developing action plans is really important to drive the momentum of change.
Look for a change that is symbolic and easily demonstrable. Keep doing it over and over until it turns into what is usual.

Best Moments

‘There are those companies that need to make a big change and those that need to promote more, what they already have’
‘Change has to be driven from the top’
‘I’m not there to determine what their culture is, there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong culture, its what’s fit for purpose for them’

About The Guest

Karen Gill is an organisational culture and change expert who works with businesses both large and small to create the culture they need to live by to achieve their vision and work within to deliver their strategy.

An experienced HRD for over 20 years, she has worked across a range of sectors and industries. About 5 years ago, she became heavily involved in change and organisational culture, having successfully led the global publishing company she was working for through a realignment of its culture to meet the needs of its new strategic direction. Since then, culture has become her passion. With a deep area of expertise, Karen has supported a variety of organisations with alongside organisational design and change projects. Karen has found that her background in practical people strategies has enhanced her understanding of just how to diagnose current cultures, plot the future cultural landscape and create the momentum for pulling the change levers required.

Karen is a qualified change practitioner, a qualified Executive coach and she has a Masters in Organisational Psychology. All of which she finds valuable in her work in supporting senior teams, managers and leaders in achieving cultural change and alignment. Using a 3 stage framework she has developed to create cultural change, by working at a strategic level with top teams as well as line managers and leaders to ensure change is tangible and embedded so it sticks!

Outside of work, Karen is a Trustee for a new and exciting charity Bristol and Bath Parks Foundation, which aims to promote the use of open spaces to the local residents and communities.

Karen Gill on LinkedIn
2thePoint Website

About The Host

Lucinda Carney is a Business Psychologist with 15 years in Senior Corporate L&D roles and a further 10 as CEO of Actus Software where she worked closely with HR colleagues helping them to solve the same challenges across a huge range of industries. It was this breadth of experience that inspired Lucinda to set up the HR Uprising community to facilitate greater collaboration across HR professionals in different sectors, helping them to ‘rise up’ together.

“When we look up we rise up”