Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change Essay Example for Free

Overcoming Cultural Barriers to Change Essay There is a popular saying â€Å"the only thing that is constant is change† by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. What it simply means is that the only guarantee in life is that things do not always stay the same. Change is needed to grow and advance in life. In the corporate and healthcare industries, change is happening all the time. This article addresses how the Corporate Culture within an entity can aid or hurt the change process at hand. Corporate Culture is defined as a set of characteristics that define a particular company. It involves employee attitudes, values, customs, standards, policies and procedures, and rites and rituals. It defines how a company performs and how it gets things accomplished toward either a positive or negative outcome. The article describes the characteristics of a high performance corporate culture and a low performance corporate culture. In a high performance corporate culture the individuals are more willing to embrace the changes compared to a company were low performance corporate culture is the norm. When organizations are able to adopt change and readily execute systems to carry it out, they tend to be more prosperous. A company with a low performance corporate culture can place a burden on the attempts to change, making it more difficult for everybody involved from management all the way to customers. The article also gives advice on how to overcome cultural barriers to move the culture from low performing to high performing. Some of these principles include giving rewards, showing by example, encouraging involvement, repetition, stating over and over the change and how it will benefit the organization and the expectations from the team and be passionate. By considering the organization’s culture, and acknowledging any key barriers to change, one can help make the change initiative more successful. Perseverance, communication, and passion is needed to build and support new ways of working. Building a higher-performance culture is fundamental to the organizations ability to adapt and change, and to its lasting prosperity. References Last Name, F. M. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title, Pages From To. Last Name, F. M. (Year). Book Title. City Name: Publisher Name.