Improving Maintenance and Reliability Through Cultural Change. Stephen Thomas G.
As a result, it will enable people to know what to ask for, what to do, and how to implement changes to the very fabric of the organization for sustainable improvement over the long haul.
The book is unique not only in that it makes a complex process easily understood, but it also brings into the equation the eight elements of change and shows how they relate to and support the concept.
To add one other benefit, this book is focused on a specific aspect of change in the work place, namely equipment reliability. There are many books on this subject, but none that tie the concept of cultural change to that of improving reliability of plant equipment.
If you have read my book Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, you will recall that there are many topics that I addressed in detail such as vision, the Goal Achievement Model, outcomes and impacts, and a methodology for portraying the health of your change process through The Web of Change. All of these topics are pertinent to the study of cultural change; although I will reference them, I will refer you to my previous book for the details.
Also in Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide, I discussed the eight elements of change. Each of these – leadership, work process, structure, group learning, technology, communication, interrelationships, and rewards – is important in its own right, but collectively they are even more important in how they relate to one another. In my prior book, all eight elements were addressed in two chapters. This was the short version, but it served to help the reader understand the concept and the connectivity between the elements. In this book, as you will see in the chapter synopsis below, I have addressed each of the elements in its own chapter and will tie them closely to the theme of this book – organization culture and cultural change.
I will also provide you with a tool, The Cultural Web of Change, to assess the progress you are making towards changing the culture of your organization. In this way you will be able to identify the gaps. Then using Change Root Cause Failure Analysis (C-RCFA), you will be able to take corrective action to get your process back on track. This tool will be described in Chapter 17 and is included on the CD at the back of the book.
In addition, the CD contains a file (with voice) providing the reader with an oversight of the topic and material contained in the text. This presentation will help you and those within your company get an initial understanding of the content.
The chapters that follow should prove to be interesting and enlightening. They will include real examples of my own and those of key individuals with whom I discussed this topic so you can get a broader perspective on the issues.
Chapter 1 Getting Started
This chapter opens up the topic of organizational culture as it relates to plant reliability. In Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide. I discussed the eight elements of change. This book takes the next step and introduces the glue that binds the eight elements together – culture.
Chapter 2 Culture Defined
The first step towards understanding culture is to define it. This chapter does just that and introduces the four elements of culture – values, role models, rites and rituals, and cultural infrastructure. These will each be addressed separately in Chapters 4 through 7.
Chapter 3 The Need for Vision and Goals
Equally important in the study of culture are the concepts of vision and goals. The vision sets the overall strategic direction that the firm intends to pursue over the long haul. The goals, or in our case the Goal Achievement Model, is how you get from where you are to where you want to be. These two concepts are foundational and are what an organization’s cultural change process is built upon.
Chapter 4 Organizational Values
Organizational values are how a company communicates to its employees what is important. It enables the workforce to be able to make the right decisions when faced with a number of choices. This chapter provides clarity to this topic.
Chapter 5 Role Models
In the area of work performance, what gets measured gets done. The same maxim applies to human behavior. In this case, how the boss or senior management behaves gets modeled or replicated by those in the organization. Role models are a critical aspect of culture. In changing a culture, specific behaviors need to be instilled in the organization. Because we know that people model behavior of the leadership, these individuals play a crucial role in promulgating the new and specific cultural behaviors.
Chapter 6 Rites and Rituals
Rites and rituals are the third major component of organizational culture. They are two separate concepts but ones that reinforce each other. As defined by Deal and Kennedy in their landmark text Corporate Cultures, rituals are how things are done, not just the major things, but all things. Rituals communicate to everyone the accepted behavior within the context of a company culture. Rituals can even exist at the sub-culture level, but they provide the same level of employee behavioral guidance. Understanding rituals is the key to understanding how to change them.
Rites, the second component, are how the company reinforces acceptable behavior. A grasp of both of these and how they support one another is a good first step towards cultural change.
Chapter 7 Cultural Infrastructure
This chapter introduces a very important concept in the review of organizational culture. The cultural infrastructure is an invisible set of processes that help to shape organizational behavior and communication. If you don’t understand and pay attention to these forces, you will discover that changes you want to institute take a lot longer than expected and some, in spite of all of your efforts, do not get done at all
Chapter 8 Introduction to the Elements
This chapter bridges the discussion in my last book, Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide and the more detailed and culturally focused discussion of these elements in this book. The eight elements are the same, but this book will explore each in more depth and focus on how they individually and collectively support cultural change.
Chapter 9 Leadership
Leadership is the most important of the eight elements. Chapter 9 is written in two major parts. Part 1 provides you with a broad understanding of the term leadership and how it is applied. Part 2 focuses on leadership as a critical part of the eight elements of change and how it impacts the four elements of culture.
Chapter 10 - Work Process
Work process has actually has three parts – information flow, the actual flow of work, and the flow of materials in a company. The first of these three components will be addressed in the chapter on communication. The third will not be a topic in this text because it ties more closely to a text on logistics. However the second component is key to cultural change. The reason for this is that, in many ways, the processes associated with doing work differently are exactly what cultural change is all about. This chapter will discuss ways to change culture by changing the work process.
Chapter 11 - Structure
How organizations are structured is often the difference between success and failure. Structure defines in many ways how things get accomplished. Reporting relationships and how functions are tied together are very important in changing a culture. This chapter looks at structure with a cultural focus and shows