Transforming an organization requires a fundamental shift in mindset. In many cases, this means moving away from traditional approaches and embracing new paradigms that drive growth, innovation, and collaboration. Here are a few key mindset shifts that can help you and your organization achieve greater success and resilience in a rapidly changing world.
From Profit to Purpose
Traditionally, organizations focused primarily on profit. This meant that the main goal of every meeting and new initiative was to somehow benefit financially. Shifting towards a purpose-driven mindset means recognizing that purpose drives everything, including profit. By aligning your organization’s activities with a broader mission and values, you can inspire and engage employees, foster customer loyalty, and ultimately achieve sustainable success. And the numbers support this. Purpose-driven companies often outperform their peers because they attract passionate employees and loyal customers who resonate with their mission.
From Hierarchy to Network
The traditional hierarchical structure, where instructions flow from the top to the bottom, can stifle creativity and slow down decision-making. Moving towards a network-based approach emphasizes collaboration, allowing unique ideas and skills to flourish. This shift encourages a more agile and innovative environment where all team members can contribute their expertise and insights. In a networked organization, teams are often cross-functional, and communication flows freely across all levels. This structure enables quicker responses to market changes and fosters a culture of continuous improvement. Companies like Google and Valve have adopted network-based models, which have significantly contributed to their innovative capabilities and competitive advantages.
From Control to Empowerment
In a control-based environment, the focus is often on monitoring and driving performance. However, all too often, this can lead to excessive micromanagement. Shifting to an empowerment mindset means trusting and empowering motivated employees to take ownership of their work. This approach helps to foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and higher engagement, as employees feel valued and trusted to make decisions. Time and time gain, empowerment had been shown to lead to higher job satisfaction and motivation, as employees are given the autonomy to leverage their strengths and creativity.
From Plan to Experiment
While planning for the future is important, plans that are "overly rigid" can limit an organization’s ability to adapt to change. Embracing experimentation involves utilizing available resources to adapt and innovate on a more continual basis. This mindset encourages taking calculated risks, learning from failures, and iterating quickly to stay ahead in a dynamic environment. Companies that prioritize experimentation often lead their industries due to their ability to quickly pivot and respond to new opportunities and challenges.
From Privacy to Transparency
Safeguarding knowledge, data, and information is now - more than ever - essential to maintaining a competitive edge. However, shifting towards transparency means learning to share and be inspired by one another. Open communication fosters trust, collaboration, and continuous improvement, as team members are often much more willing to share ideas, feedback, and insights. Transparency can also lead to increased accountability and stronger relationships between stakeholders, customers, employees, and management. .
Implementing Mindset Shifts in Your Organization
Of course, adopting these mindset shifts requires a commitment to change and a willingness to challenge existing norms. Here are some steps that you can follow to help facilitate this transformation:
Transforming an organization requires more than just implementing new processes - it demands a fundamental shift in mindset. While they can be difficult to implement, these shifts not only enhance internal dynamics but also resonate with customers and stakeholders, resulting in a more resilient and adaptable business.
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Organisation culture – Part 5
When we hold directors and managers accountable for a problem with organisational culture, we affirm that culture is a product of choices made and actions taken (or neglected). Consequently, it cannot be fixed and immutable. While it may be consistent (and sometimes even seems ossified), it is amenable to reshaping.
Just as a person can change their beliefs and assumptions through reflection on their experience and learning, organisations can shift their cultural ‘tone’ by virtue of governance and management decisions and actions.
Ways of knowing – epistemological perspectives
In my previous post, I suggested that whilst helpful, Robert Cloninger‘s Personality Model only drew attention to two kinds of knowledge (or ways of knowing), and that non-profit organisations would want to consider other ways as well.
In describing the aspects of procedural learning associated with temperament, Cloninger identifies habit systems associated with each of four sets of traits (harm avoidance, novelty seeking, reward dependence and persistence). When identifying the aspects of propositional learning associated with character, he links these with conceptual insights and cognitive sets related to three character traits (self-directedness, cooperativeness and self-transcendence).
My adaptation of his personality model was a device to seek insights into organisational behaviour and culture – by anthropomorphising the organisation. In a note overlaid on a modified version of Cloninger’s Model, I suggested that organisational learning and development, knowledge management, induction processes, professional development, and reflective practices would take both propositional and procedural knowledge into account. However, these are only two of a number of knowledge types we may want to consider.
Before you consider the way knowledge, learning, and behaviour management are addressed within your organisational culture, it may be helpful to revisit knowledge theory, and to catalogue some of the ways of knowing (types of knowledge) widely recognised in non-profit fields.
For hundreds of years, Aristotle’s conception (written circa 350BCE) of the types of knowledge (intellectual virtues) was the dominant one. He defined four ways of knowing, namely:
The extent to which these four types of knowledge are present may determine the degree of wisdom (Sophia) one possesses. This ability to think well about the nature of the world (to apply the intellectual virtues) ultimately aims to achieve a state of wellbeing or flourishing that Aristotle called eudaemonia.
In more recent times, the types of knowledge we can name have multiplied, with the summary in the chart below identifying 14 different types. There does not appear to be agreement about a unified taxonomy, and even in the collection illustrated, some degree of overlap or duplication can be discerned. Not included in the chart are indigenous (ancestral) knowing, spiritual knowing, and artistic knowing (creating aids to understanding through story, visual arts, movement, music). (See also https://nonprofitquarterly.org/multiple-ways-knowing-expanding-know/ and https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationfrontlineworkers/)
Ethical Knowing
Cloninger may have intended to encompass prudence and ethical wisdom in his model, but on the face of it, his model only seems to address propositional (know-that) and procedural (know-how) knowledge. Admittedly, harm avoidance is included in procedural learning, while cooperativeness and self-transcendence are featured in propositional learning, however, the implication is that harm avoidance is simply a habit, while cooperativeness and self-transcendence involve only declarative knowledge (facts, algorithms, logical methods).
Ethical knowledge and behaviour are concerned with what is morally good (right) and bad (wrong). ‘Ethics’ also applies to any system (code) or theory of moral values or principles. Moral reasoning has its own methods. Where empirical knowledge arises through causation, moral knowledge does not (as a rule). It is not purely intellectual or rational, as it requires insight into and regulation of desires and emotions. This is especially so when a choice is required between self-interest and the interests of others (including those of the ‘host’ organisation).
One’s level of moral reasoning may also be elevated through experience and reflection on that experience. If ethical behaviour is born of ‘habit’, it is nonetheless able to be modified so that new habits and judgments come into play.
The chart below illustrates several aspects of ethical knowledge which might inform an organisation considering the impact on their culture of the approaches taken to induction of new hires and directors, professional development of team members, and the performance management and supervision of employees and volunteers.
You may identify other aspects of ethical knowledge, or indeed other ways of knowing, which you would want to consider in your cultural governance deliberations.
Ways of being – ontological perspectives
In Five Ways of Being, authors Jane Danvers and Heather De Blasio outline the mindsets and dispositions required for leaders to build a positive culture. The five ways of being they describe outline the benefits of:
This selection stands in contrast to the more commercial focal areas highlighted by Accrue Performance Marketing Inc. in their 20 Ways of Being: Your roadmap to mastering marketing (e.g being competitive, buyable, profitable).
Knowing, being, willing, and becoming
These examples simply illustrate that there are many ‘ways of being‘ and ‘knowing‘ available for your board and management team to choose from, and that deliberate choices (willing) and follow up action (becoming) are necessary to fully exercise your responsibility for organisational culture. These four states of organisational self-awareness and modes of ‘agency’ are illustrated in the header image above.
(See also Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.)
Organisational behaviour is the sum of the behaviours of all who work within or for the organisation. It is their pattern of behaviour, their way of being, underpinned by privately held and shared beliefs and assumptions – all of which can change (for better or worse) according to the self-awareness of the people and the organisation’s governance and management activities.
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Organisational Culture – Part 1
When we read about an association’s or charity’s culture in the media, all too often it is not a ‘good news’ story.
They don’t generally give out Walkley or Pulitzer awards to journalists for stories about innovative, caring, or ethical cultures. The news focus, therefore, skews towards corrupt, risky, toxic, or greedy cultures, and the directors and managers on whose watch that culture was created or allowed.
‘Organisational culture’ is an ephemeral concept. It means different things to different people, but also different things to any one of us depending on the circumstances.
We will have a different view about it as a ‘new hire’ than we have after years of service. We will also hold different perspectives within the same organisation depending on our role or ‘position’ within the organisation.
Working ‘on’ your culture
For some, culture is like the weather. It exists independently of anything we say or do, and we operate as best we can within it, whether it is ‘stormy’ or ‘fine’. Directors and managers however are held accountable for the effects of culture, especially if something goes wrong or someone gets hurt. It is therefore preferable that they work together to deliberately nurture their best possible organisational culture.
Both internal and external stakeholders know that what we pay attention to is what we care about. That is the true expression of our values – not what we say in glossy publications or online. Paying the right kind of attention to the right things is the key.
When reflecting on how to work on your ‘organisational culture’ (not just in it), it will be helpful first to ‘map the territory’ by coming to a shared view on your present culture compared with your desired one, and how this analysis relates to your organisation’s effectiveness. Understanding the elements, characteristics, and dimensions of your NFP culture is merely a first step in the process of exerting a positive influence.
Defining organisational culture
‘Organisational culture’ is commonly defined as the set of underlying values, beliefs, assumptions, and ways of acting and interacting which create the unique social and psychological environment of an organisation (Source: GothamCulture).
Daniel Coyle, the author of The Culture Code, offers another version:
“Culture is a set of living relationships working towards a shared goal. it is not something you are, it’s something you do.”
Elements of Culture
Johnson and Scholes devised the cultural web model (included in the header image above) to outline the complex interaction of the major dimensions through which culture is expressed. In their model, those cultural elements which interact to create a paradigm, or prevailing climate, are:
The values, beliefs, and assumptions of the individuals and groups within the organisation, and their behaviour, are not highlighted in this model, but rather implied.
Cultural orientations
The cultural ‘climate’ can also be modified by shifting the emphasis placed on certain attitudes, or orientations, as suggested in the work of O’Reilly et al, and Hofstede et al. These shifts will be designed to promote certain behaviours and sanction others.
The key domains in which the attitudes of the board and management can affect the culture of an organisation (set the tone) have been identified as follows:
These orientations are based on factors explored in:
O’Reilly, C., & Chatman, J., & Caldwell, D. (1991). People and Organizational Culture: A Profile Comparison Approach to Assessing Person-Organization Fit. Academy of Management Journal. 34. 487-516, and
Chatman, J., & Jehn, K., Assessing the Relationship between Industry Characteristics and Organizational Culture: How Different Can You Be? The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 37, No. 3 (Jun., 1994), pp. 522-553
Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, offer an alternative set of focal areas in which directors and managers can set the orgaisational ‘tone’. In their model, calibration can be achieved within a spectrum of possibilities for each of the featured domains.
These two sets of orientations provide the other two faces of the Organisational Culture Cube in the header image above.
Model mashups
The header image juxtaposes three organisational culture models related to the elements and dimensions of culture, each of which refers to somewhat different cultural factors or orientations.
Traditional cube charts seek to suggest specific relationships ‘inside the cube’ between each of the factors or variables identified on the three outer faces. In the case of the cube in the header image, and the two below, the implied relationships between factors and variables are not so much a matter of locating points of intersection between three specific criteria or factors (one from each set). Instead, the ‘mashups‘ offer potential catalysts for reflection on how quite different perspectives might need to be accommodated when seeking to improve culture via governance and management measures.
The three model mashups selected here involve just nine of the many cultural models and frameworks that have been devised over the years to help practitioners and academics better understand organisational culture, and to engage with it more constructively. As a thought experiment that seeks further insights for your organisation, you could try juxtaposing these nine models in different combinations, or in combination with other models you are familiar with.
The organisational culture series
This introductory post is the first in a series on organisational culture (and behaviour), which is a vast and complex field. Future posts will include reflections on:
See also:
Hofstede, G., Hofstede, GJ., and Minkov, M., Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind, McGraw Hill, 2010
Coyle, D., The Culture Code: The secrets of highly successful groups, Cornerstone Digital, 2018
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Self-organization is a natural process where systems autonomously arrange themselves. It exhibits emergent patterns and decentralizes control. Mechanisms include feedback loops and adaptation, offering benefits like efficiency and resilience. Challenges involve coordination and control. It finds applications in biological systems and engineering, with examples in ant colonies, neural networks, and traffic flow.
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