Organizational culture change is not an easy matter. Many companies want to successfully achieve this goal at one point or another, but a good portion of those corporations fail to do so, or are only partially successful. Why is culture change so difficult? Part of the problem is that people are habitual by nature.

This means that change, even if it is good, will always have to climb over the obstacle of routine, which is comforting to many people. Another aspect is not fully understanding the process of creating organizational culture and therefore not putting in a fully effective effort into every area that needs nurturing in order to end up with a healthy organizational culture.

What needs to happen in order for a group to create the organizational culture that is most profitable or most wanted by the company? The first thing to realize is that no one can change the organizational culture within a company without knowing what the final goal of the transformation is, or what type of culture is already in place.

Only after knowing the culture in place and the culture that you are aspiring to can an accurate evaluation of the company be made. Changing culture includes changing many little things in order to affect the larger picture. Only by knowing the full details of what the culture is can you hope to change it.

Maybe your company isn't willing to take risks because everyone just agrees with whatever supervisors are pushing ideas, and so there is no fresh input, nor is there any chance for cutting edge ideas to emerge from group think. On the other hand, maybe your company is too far the other way.

Maybe every supervisor just keeps pushing their own individual agenda, and everyone is so busy trying to promote themselves that there is no cohesion or sense of teamwork within the company at all.

It can be very difficult to change the culture of an existing organization. In fact, the general consensus is that it is much harder to change an unhealthy organizational culture within a floundering company than it is to create a culture in a brand new company starting from scratch.

When an organizational culture is already in place, any attempt to shift to a different type of culture forces employees to unlearn the old values, assumptions, and routines before they can fully integrate the new changes into their regular schedule. Because of this, two of the critical elements necessary in order to create an organizational culture change is steadfast and unwavering support from the executives of the company, and a strong, well detailed and executed training program. These two elements are the pillars from which everything else must be built.

For example, if a culture is trying to be made in the "we're a family" mold, an odd casual Friday event could be a fifteen minute contest to judge the ugliest or most outrageous ties. If the head of the company is in the running for the prize, that sends a message to everyone else that this is a serious long term plan for change, not to mention an instant camaraderie builder.