Influencing Organizational Culture and Change

Influencing Organizational Culture and Change
The success of an organization solemnly relies on the existing culture that the specific organization has established. Organizations are mainly established based on the corporate culture where the organization’s values and behaviors contribute towards the unique character traits of the psychological and social environment of the organization. It is worth noting that the organization’s culture is based on rulers, beliefs, customs, and attitudes. Therefore, the business culture that operates within the organization aims to ensure there is an establishment of reinforcement over the social and psychological interactions. The adoption of business culture ensures that the organization can single out one culture that will help ensure that the shared values and behaviors have been established (Rezaei, Allameh, and Ansari, 2018). However, some factors need to be considered a priority due to their role in ensuring that an organization can adopt and implement a specific culture. Ensuring that the organization has a culture that is independent and free from any influence is instrumental in ensuring that the values and beliefs are used as a sign of identity. It is worth noting that an organization has to establish its foundation on a specific culture to help develop a sign of identity and ensure that the entire population can identify the organization based on culture as a brand (Rezaei, Allameh, and Ansari, 2018). Additionally, the process of changing from one culture to the other is cumbersome and costly, thereby limiting the probability of an organization shifting from one culture to the other.
Allstate Insurance group is one of the major insurance companies within the United States that is enriched with ingrained culture. The top management has focused on ensuring that the ingrained culture is reinforced by establishing well-structured leadership that helps in the management of the employees and structuring the system of operation. By establishing a well-structured model of leadership and management of employees, the insurance company has been able to evaluate the various requirements needed in establishing cultural change. The leadership model mainly empowers the leaders to have the skills and knowledge that are useful in ensuring that a change of culture is done perfectly and turns out to be a success. Mainly the top leadership is always expected to have much impact on the leadership by ensuring that the people working below them can realize their potential and impacts towards the attainment of the goals and objectives of the organization.
In most cases, the managing director or the Chief Executive Officer has a role in ensuring that change has been established within the organization. Majorly, the CEO contributes and inspires other members within the organization to become the instrument of change and embrace all the changes irrespective of the current situation (Gao, 2017). According to Rezaei et al. (2018), a change leader within the organization is an instrument of change due to their ability to possess the characters of being uncertain and relieved.
The use of the leadership model is very instrumental in discovering the obstacles that have been preventing the adoption of change within an organization. The leadership model embraced at Allstate Insurance Group was very instrumental in detecting how cultural management and cultural evolution have been in constant evolution in the process of preventing the establishment of cultural change within the organization (Gao, 2017). Establishing a culture of the organization directly impacts the overall reputation to ensure that the general public can have a differing perception over the services and products of the organization as opposed to its history. According to the case of Allstate Insurance, it is evident enough to conclude that the employees and the top management play a vital role in ensuring that an organization can attain its overall goals and objectives by becoming the champions and the instruments of cultural change. Most insurance companies are known to ignore their culture and mainly focus on marketing strategies that will help in luring more clients to their premiums. Allstate Insurance was not an exemption and took part in embracing ignorance, which negatively impacted the company. However, the company’s leadership structure turned out to be instrumental in ensuring that the company did not incur more losses than other competitors (Gochhayat, Giri, and Suar, 2017). The same leadership was useful in embracing change and ensuring that it is impactful to the entire population. Majorly, the leaders were much instrumental in identifying areas that required urgent change and created values that would be used in developing a new culture.
Executive summary
Culture plays a very useful role in ensuring that the organization remains united towards the attainment of the overall goals and objectives. However, the success of organizational culture relies on the cooperation and unity of all the stakeholders of the organization who are committed to the attainment of excellence. Through the culture, the organization can establish some reputation that helps build the identity of the group. Additionally, the establishment of the organization’s culture is very instrumental in the process of ensuring that the attributes and the beliefs that build the identity of the organization are maintained (Gochhayat, Giri, and Suar, 2017). The culture established by the workers is passed from one generation of the employees to the other, and this plays a vital role in establishing a brand that is unique from the others. According to Arokodare et al. (2019), the organization’s culture is expressed through organizational symbols or rites. Organizational symbols are shared with the next generation of employees through hereditary means, which helps maintain continuity of the culture and norm.
The external environment of the business is very useful in the process of establishing a reputation. Stakeholders, employees, and customers play a vital role through cooperation towards the attainment of the cultural values of the organization. Therefore, the organization’s leadership is instrumental in ensuring that the organization can adapt and maintain the culture (Haynes, 2020). Additionally, the organization’s manager plays an instrumental role in ensuring that the guidelines towards attaining the culture are drafted and makes a follow to assess the readiness and conformity of the workers towards adopting the newly introduced culture. During the assessment process, the manager can identify employees and other stakeholders with whom they share the goals in changing the culture and narrative of the organization (Haynes, 2020). Upon identifying like-minded individuals, the manager can gather ideas aimed at ensuring the organization can attain a vertical trajectory in establishing change. The like-minded individuals offer great ideas due to their vast experience and diverse areas of specialization.
Considering the existence of cross-cultural techniques in the management of organizations is very useful. With proper consideration of cultures, the organization can develop a reputation that is very useful in ensuring that it is branded across the globe (Haynes, 2020). For instance, the developers of the automated Teller Machine were very wise in considering the differing cultures and languages across the globe. They ensured that the machine was able to offer the common languages that are uniform across the globe, making it possible for the technology to be embraced in developed and developing nations. Therefore, it is morally correct to indicate that the developers of the ATM majorly focused on ensuring that cross-cultural management was their priority and a balance of the regional and international market was a priority. However, most managers within the United States have limited knowledge regarding the new age that is effective in the entire globe and its relevance in ensuring that a global culture is embraced. It is also worth noting that the organizations confront cultural competencies due to social dynamics, which in most instances mandate the organization to establish some transformational programs (Odor, 2018). Nevertheless, managers are also not to be trusted as the instruments of culture because some of them may not be conversant with the entire process of initiating change.
Establishing the model for change
Models are very useful in the organizational setup to ensure that the management can understand the reasons prompting the changes and what the change is expected to pursue. The reasons for change are entangled in the transformation process, where the facts are considered the driving force that is causing people to agitate for change (Oh and Han, 2020). However, establishing cultural change might evolve to be very challenging across all the members and the managers due to the fear of the outcome among the members. Additionally, the managers are also likely to fail in embracing cultural change in a situation where they have limited knowledge on what they should do to ensure that the changes are made more effective. Handy’s curve, Lewis model, Bechard, and Harris model outline how Allstate Insurance can enact changes within the organization and overcome the hurdles.
Handy’s curve
Time is one of the precious resources that are very much limited and, once wasted by the organization’s management, cannot be able to recover. According to the proponent of the model, the organization’s manager should focus on developing a clear analysis of the market and establish a timeline through which change can be initiated (Salehzadeh et al., 2017). Time identification ensures that there is proper utilization of all the hurdles and elimination of all the chances of enduring failures by having all the staff members psychologically prepared over the oncoming changes. Change is inevitable hence requires proper time allocation (Salehzadeh et al., 2017). Allstate Insurance was stagnating and enduring some losses due to the reliance on outdated cultures and was not competing with others within the market. The use of the same sales and culture methods resulted in the organization incurring losses due to the constant changes that the competitors were executing.
Lewis model
Lewis model is greatly embraced due to its ability to overcome the test of time during the entire process of testing and execution. The model is named after the proponent Lewis. Lewis argues that the only way to ensure that change is established within the organization is by prioritizing having people who are anxious about change have their mentality changed (Braithwaite, 2019). He argues that you have to eliminate the use of expectations and start to initiate a program of change across all the organization members for the process to be effective. Applying the Lewis model at Allstate Insurance was instrumental in ensuring that the organization could develop assertiveness and evolve to be more spontaneous. Additionally, the model was very useful in empowering the managers with the skills of ensuring that the employees can forego their anxious ideas on how change should be initiated within the organization (Braithwaite, 2019). Elimination of the past mindset and thinking help in ensuring that every individual is able to embrace the newly introduced culture without subjecting it to critics and biases.
Bechard and Harris model
Establishing the reasons why a change is initiated and if the change is necessary or not is very useful. Bechard and Harris are very instrumental in the process of ensuring there is an analysis of the existing organizational gap and demonstrating the entire process of planning and implementation (Stavrinoudis et al., 2021). The proponents of the model argue that the organization should clearly analyze why there is a need for change and which culture they feel should be introduced. Through the gathering of ideas and proper analysis of the market, then the entire process of change can be initiated. The manager of Allstate Insurance was expected to analyze the reasons why the organization was supposed to change its communication culture (Stavrinoudis et al., 2021). With proper explanation on reasons for change, the manager was to provide the expected outline through which the organization will follow and ensure that the change is attained.
Leavitt’s model
Leavitt’s model is very strategic in the process of incorporating the activities, technology and human capital in the process of ensuring that a descriptive analysis is realized. With the incorporation of the components listed above, the organization is able to benefit from newly generated insights and lower the occurrence of perceptions (Stavrinoudis et al., 2021). For instance, application pf the model at Allstate Insurance, the organization would be able to establish tasks that can be undertake by specific individuals based on their interests and specialization.
Weisbord model
The proponents of Weisbord model are very instrumental in the process of ensuring that all the organizational challenges are realized within the required timeline and this turn out to be instrumental in the restructuring of the management. The model is also very useful in the process of providing the organization with the six steps that are useful in the process of eliminating the occurrence of failure (Stavrinoudis et al., 2021). Allstate Insurance can exercise the use of the model with the main aim of ensuring that the clients are exposed to some thrills that will help in outlining the vision and the mission. Additionally, the model helps in fostering the unity of working together and ensure that dogged leaders have their insightful ideas incorporated.
Full-burke Litwin model
The Full-burke Litwin model applies the use of 12 organizational factors which is initiated to ensure that the organization is able to embrace evolution. The management of Allstate Insurance is based on developing an understanding the mission and is useful in the process of enhancing extrinsic and intrinsic culture of the organization (Braithwaite, 2019). Additionally, the model empowers the management to have some clear understanding over the existing culture of the employees and empower them to have skills and values that align with the expectations of the organization.
Enterprise services
Leaders have been outlined as the pioneers of initiating cultural change within the organization due to the ability and the power they possess towards influencing the entire organization. Additionally, the leaders have endured both success and failures, and this gives them resilience and courage to face the future with courage (Zolotas, Chatzidimitriou and Symeonidis, 2018.). In order to succeed in the process of executing the changes within Allstate Insurance, the manager was expected to exercise the highest level of resilience and share the knowledge on ensuring that the change is effective. During the process of planning, the process of ensuring that the employees were able to test the effectiveness of the proposed cultural changes that were aimed at ensuring that a new paradigm was established and the company branded (Zolotas, Chatzidimitriou and Symeonidis, 2018.). The model that was used to test the proposed cultural changes offered an opportunity for the employees to explain why there was a need for change and have the vision and mission of the organization restructured to suit the needs and expectations of the organization. The closed-door meeting was conducted severally where the staff working for Allstate were sharing ideas on how the changes will be effective and the positive impacts they will cause to the national and the global market.
Results
Senior management has made the development of well-structured leadership a priority in order to ensure that the embedded culture is maintained. The CEO is primarily responsible for recognizing and motivating the company’s other employees. Allstate Insurance Group’s leadership model was incredibly useful in determining how cultural management and evolution have been in constant motion. Most insurance companies put their culture on the back burner in favor of marketing strategies that would help them recruit more clients and raise their rates. Time is one of the most valuable resources that is limited and cannot be recovered once it has been squandered by the organization’s management. At Allstate Insurance, the Lewis model was extremely helpful in ensuring that the company could develop assertiveness. They were able to explain their goals, assess the present situation, and plan tense meetings. Significant recognition, a new web awarding system, and personnel retraining have all benefited from this transition.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the existing culture that has been formed by the company is solely responsible for the organization’s success. To aid in the establishment of a sign of identification and ensure that the entire public can identify the organization based on culture as a brand, an organization must build its foundation on a specific culture. The Allstate Insurance Group is a big insurance company with a well-established culture. The leadership model embraced at Allstate Insurance Group was very instrumental in the process of detecting how cultural management and cultural evolution have been in constant evolution. Most insurance companies ignore their culture and mainly focus on marketing strategies that will help in luring more clients to their premiums.
 
References
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