Is your organization characterized by internal cultural differences? Do you have branches located in other contexts and environments, which differ considerably from the location of Head-Office? We are able to help you combine the best of both worlds and create cultural confluence. Resulting in:
Our approach consists of five key steps which we execute together with you in co-creation.
Cultural Confluence takes place continuously and in all corners of the world. Very often it is simple, and we, human beings, do it all the time. We move up a little to the side or we pause for a minute to wait for another to take the initiative. We can also be curious and enjoy seeing what a different approach might bring. And yet, simultaneously and at another level, cultural confluence proves to be one of the hardest things to do. People have unconsciously learned to look at a situation in a certain way and cannot imagine other people seeing it differently. Before you know it, communication is hampered, collaboration becomes difficult, or trust is severely damaged. People may stop sharing their truth, or they may leave for greener pastures elsewhere.
The route to take, to stimulate confluence (and to prevent diffluence) within your teams, depends on your goals and ambition. It is always helpful to create awareness, to increase cultural knowledge and to enlarge cultural competence. This provides people with the necessary skills to analyse their own and others’ behaviour and improves their ability to find solutions in sticky situations.
In case your goal is to leverage culture, you need to do more. You can create opportunities for people and cultures to truly complement each other. You can develop novel management approaches where confluence is facilitated and stimulated. In these situations, you may facilitate a happier and motivated work force and as such, a competitive advantage. Therefore, you are invited on this fascinating road of deep cultural analysis, reflection, and implementation.
This route is based on the successful implementation of a cultural organizational change process by Vasco Silva and his managers and employees, described in the book. It is a strategic change process with the active involvement and input from leadership and employees. It is based on the phases described above. Of course, it will be necessary to tailor make these phases to your specific organization, and we facilitate this process together with you in co-creation.