Integrating Organisational culture: why evolution and values are key to sustainable success

What we think of culture is often very hard to define. But we all recognise our own organisation culture. So, what are the implications when we bring in someone new to the business, or acquire a new business? Is it right that new entrants are assimilated into the culture of our organisation? What about bringing in fresh ideas, new ways of doing things? This post will cover aspects of the issues around not integrating and over integrating and will suggest how to integrate without losing that fresh perspective.

I recently attended the Working Futures HR event in London where I spoke with several HR, L&D and Talent managers and directors. During one conversation, I was struck by one issue: cultural integration. A HR director for a well know consumer brand spoke passionately about the challenges resulting from continued acquisition of new parts of the business. The specific issue being, how to align the newly acquired business into the organisation, without forcing a fit that could ultimately be destructive. Clearly, there needed to be some consistency between the parent organisation and the new acquisition. But there was also awareness that assimilating too tightly, would probably result in destroying the culture of that newly acquired company. In short, how to integrate enough to get things done, without killing the culture of the business we have just acquired?

Problems of not integrating culture

When a business operates with multiple conflicting sub-cultures within, it often leads to big problems. The main difficulty here becomes getting things done in a coordinated way across the organisation. If there isn’t a single unifying culture, confusion and or conflict can be the result. When different teams, departments or divisions have different ways of working, you get siloed behaviour. Worse still, those different cultures can end up working against each other. An organisation fighting itself is akin to a dog biting its own tail: ridiculous and somewhat entertaining spectacle for observers, but frustrating, pointless and often painful for the dog.

Problems from Assimilating too well

“We want new blood”, is often the cry of an organisation. Companies invest in home-grown talent, but also want to attract and develop external talent. That could take the shape of bringing in new external candidates, or acquiring a new business in an area in which they want to expand. Either way, the challenge of cultural assimilation is the same. If we integrate the new recruits too well, will we lose some of the challenge and difference which was the reason for hiring them? Similarly, if we buy a business because it is more innovative, entrepreneurial or agile, and then force it to adopt our existing culture, wont we lose the essential value that made it an attractive acquisition in the first place?

Integrate too tightly and we undoubtedly lose people on the journey. “Oh well, that’s ok” we say, “they clearly weren’t cut out for doing things our way, so they will be happier somewhere else.” But what do we lose in their departure? Sometimes its the very essence of what we were hoping for: fresh ideas, new competencies, or a different way of doing things.

Thinking differently about Culture

Maybe one way to help navigate this area is to challenge how we think about Culture. Describing culture as “the way we do things around here” implies that this is a constant state: this is the way things are now, the way things were and how things will be in the future. But if we reflect, culture isn’t fixed, it is more fluid, it evolves over time. It wasn’t that long ago that an often-accepted norm was to have separate bathrooms for Senior executives. Would most employees accept that as part of organisation culture today? Changes in more flexible working patterns and remote working would have similarly encountered resistance in the past, but are increasingly commonplace today. Arguably culture does change, sometimes painfully slowly, but it does evolve over time.

So, if we think about culture as evolving, how does that help with integrating the new? It could fundamentally change the approach for that new hire, or newly acquired business. Instead of approaching the situation with a mindset of “how do we integrate them into us”, if culture is evolving not fixed, we could adopt the “what can we learn from each other, and how can we use the best of both?” approach.

How do we get the best of both? Start with Values

It seems that, if we want to get the best of both, and promote the evolution of our organisation culture, we should start with values and behaviour. It might seem like conveniently side stepping the real issue, but there is a logic. If culture is about how we do things here, then behaviour is how we demonstrate and contribute to the culture, and values are what ultimately drives our behaviour.

Any integration of new business or new people could start with exploring and understanding their core values: and the differences and similarities between these and those of the parent company. The key word here is understanding, not necessarily full agreement. In looking at values rather than culture, we don’t fall into the same trap as before: its not about a single set of values that needs to be imposed on all.

Bringing it together

Successfully resolving how far to integrate new recruits / businesses into the existing culture, could lie with how we think about culture: it is more fluid and evolving. Taking that approach gives permission for the culture to develop, taking the best from the new, whilst not losing the existing. This way we don’t lose sight of the reasons why we employed the person or wanted to acquire the business in the first place.

Understanding and focusing on values could prove very successful as the vehicle for getting the balance right. Appreciation for our own values and those of others can be a way to identify common ground, respect differences and build trust: all three essentials for higher performing organisations.

At Dove Nest Group, values are at the very centre of our approach. Over 35 years we’ve worked in partnership with clients as they overcome the challenges of cultural change and evolve into higher performing teams and organisations. We don’t have a single blueprint answer, the solution always come from within the organisation. What we do at Dove Nest is facilitate that change, accelerating the speed at which you achieve your goals.

We don’t charge for exploratory conversations, so contact us about integrating culture, call us on 015395 67878, email us at enquiries@dovenest.co.uk or visit our website www.dovenest.co.uk