Ten principles for shifting the culture of your global organization

Insights

March 3, 2025

The global organizations we work with have many reasons for needing to shift their culture—to maintain a competitive edge, stay relevant, adopt new ways of working, mergers, and leadership changes.

Designing and delivering a culture shift at such scale isn’t as simple as sending a memo. It requires a comprehensive program that aligns stakeholders, educates the organization, and engages diverse audiences.

In working with enterprise users of SmartLab Transformation to deliver large change initiatives, we’ve identified ten key principles for successfully shifting the culture of an organization on a global scale.

1. Establish a clear vision and objectives

Define a compelling vision and benchmarks for success.

Defining a vision

Shifting the culture of your organization begins with envisioning the desired future state. This vision must resonate with stakeholders and reflect the values and strategic goals of the organization. A well-defined vision functions as a motivational and guiding tool to ensure everyone understands and aligns with the cultural changes being pursued.

Setting objectives

Once the vision has been defined, you must set specific, measurable objectives to track progress toward the vision. These objectives should cover various aspects of culture, such as collaboration, innovation, customer focus, and inclusivity. Being able to track progress allows you to measure success and identify areas in need of attention.

2. Secure leadership commitment

Embedding change begins at the top. This is what leaders can do to drive culture shifts—

Top-down endorsement

Ensure top leadership team endorses the culture shift and demonstrates their commitment through actions and communications. Top-down endorsement builds trust and confidence, signaling to the entire organization that the cultural transformation is a strategic priority,

Role modeling

Leaders at all levels should model the desired behaviors and attitudes, serving as role models for the rest of the organization. By embodying the cultural values and practices being promoted, leaders inspire employees to follow suit.

Resource allocation

Allocating adequate resources, including budget and personnel in support of the culture shift signals leaders are putting their money where their mouth is. Providing the necessary resources supports the implementation of the programs and activities needed to embed the new culture.

3. Engage stakeholders early and often

Early and continuous stakeholder engagement is essential for co-creating the vision and ensuring buy-in.

Stakeholder mapping

Identify key stakeholders, including employees, customers, partners, and shareholders. Understanding their interests, concerns, and potential impact on the cultural transformation is crucial for a successful culture shift. Stakeholder mapping helps to recognize who will be most affected and how their involvement and support can be secured.

Ideation workshop

Conduct workshops and brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to co-create the vision and identify potential barriers and advocates for the transformation. These workshops facilitate collaborative ideation and decision-making, resulting in a shared vision that reflects a wide range of perspectives and insights. In addition to creating a rich vision, the inclusive nature of these workshops will help promote a sense of ownership and commitment.

Feedback loops

Create opportunities and processes to gather feedback and dialogue with stakeholders throughout the transformation process. These feedback loops allow for continuous input and adjustment, ensuring stakeholder expectations are managed and addressing concerns as they emerge. Frequent check-ins will maintain momentum and reinforce the collaborative nature of the cultural transformation.

4. Conduct a cultural assessment

Understand the current culture to identify gaps and areas for improvement.

Surveys and interviews

Use surveys, interviews, and focus groups to gather insights into the current cultural state. Assess aspects like values, behaviors, attitudes, and norms. These methods paint a picture of how employees and other stakeholders perceive the existing culture and highlight areas in need of attention.

Data analysis

Analyze the data to identify patterns and areas that require change. This will also give you a foundation for comparing the current state to the desired future state and pinpoint areas of focus for closing the divide.

Cultural diagnostics

Diagnostic tools provide a comprehensive understanding of the organizational culture. These tools use structured frameworks to evaluate different aspects of the culture and their alignment with strategic goals. Organizations can use diagnostics to gain deeper insight into the underlying dynamics of their culture, facilitating targeted interventions for transformation.

5. Develop a comprehensive transformation strategy

Create a detailed roadmap for arriving at your future vision.

Strategic framework

Your strategic framework includes vision, objectives, key initiatives, timelines, and success metrics. This framework serves as a blueprint for the culture shift, ensuring all efforts are aligned with the overarching goals of the organization.

Change management plan

Create a change management plan that addresses potential resistance and outlines strategies for managing the transition. This plan is essential for anticipating and mitigating challenges that may arise.

Communication plan

Design a communication plan to keep stakeholders informed and engaged throughout the process. Effective communication is crucial for maintaining transparency and building trust. The communication plan should outline how updates will be shared, the frequency of communications, and the channels that will be used.

6. Design Learning and development initiatives

Equip employees with the knowledge and skills needed to embrace the new culture.

Training programs

Develop training programs focused on the new cultural values, desired behaviors, and leadership development. These programs should be comprehensive, ensuring all employees understand and can practice the behaviors that will drive the new culture. Leadership development is especially crucial, as leaders play a key role in modeling and reinforcing the new culture.

Workshops and seminars

Conduct workshops and seminars to deepen understanding and foster a shared commitment to the new culture. These interactive sessions provide opportunities for employees to engage with the cultural change on a deeper level, discuss their experiences, and build a collective commitment to the transformation.

E-learning modules

Utilize e-learning modules to provide flexible and scalable learning opportunities for global employees. E-learning allows employees to access training materials at their convenience, ensuring everyone, regardless of location, has the opportunity to learn and internalize the new values and behaviors.

7. Implement engagement campaigns

Communicate the cultural shift effectively to diverse audiences.

Multimedia communication

Use a variety of communication mediums, including infographics, documentation and audio-visual media, to engage all employees. This ensures the culture shift is messaged in the most impactful and engaging way.

Storytelling

Share stories and case studies that illustrate the benefits of the new culture and highlight early successes. Storytelling is a powerful tool for making the cultural shift relatable and tangible, showing employees the positive impact of the change through real-world examples.

Employee ambassadors

Identify and train ambassadors who can champion the cultural shift and influence their colleagues. Ambassadors act as advocates for the new culture, helping to spread enthusiasm and commitment throughout the organization by demonstrating the desired behaviors and attitudes.

8. Monitor and Measure Progress

Continuously monitor progress and make adjustments as needed.

Performance metrics

Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the impact of the culture shift. These may include employee engagement scores, turnover rates, and customer satisfaction levels. KPIs provide a quantitative basis for assessing progress and identifying areas in need of further attention.

Regular reviews

Conduct regular reviews to assess progress, celebrate successes, and address any challenges or roadblocks.

Continuous improvement

Foster a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging feedback and iterating based on the insights gleaned. This approach ensures that the cultural transformation is dynamic and responsive, continuously evolving based on employee input and changing circumstances.

9. Sustain the change

Embed the new culture across all areas of the organization to ensure its sustainability.

Integration

Integrate the new cultural values across all areas of the organization, such as performance management, recruitment, and reward systems. Embedding the culture into these processes will reinforce the values and perpetuate them throughout the organization.

Leadership development

Continuously develop leaders to ensure they can sustain and build on the cultural transformation, adapting to new challenges and maintaining momentum.

Cultural rituals

Establish rituals and traditions that reinforce the new culture and create a sense of belonging among employees. Cultural rituals will solidify the new values, making them a natural and habitual part of the organization's daily life.

10. Celebrate and recognize achievements

Recognize and celebrate milestones and achievements to maintain momentum and motivation.

Recognition programs

Develop recognition programs to reward individuals and teams who exemplify the new cultural values. This will reinforce the desired behaviors and motivate others to follow suit.

Celebration events

Host events to celebrate key milestones and successes, reinforcing the positive impact of the cultural shift. These events provide opportunities to publicly acknowledge progress and build a sense of community and shared achievement.

Communicate success

Regularly communicate achievements and success stories will keep the organization motivated and focused on the vision, reminding everyone of the benefits of the cultural transformation and maintaining focus and enthusiasm for ongoing efforts.

Shifting the culture of a global organization can be a complex undertaking. The ten principles outlined in this article can help organizations streamline an otherwise complicated process—and are the same principles we apply when configuring SmartLab Transformation for enterprise users looking to shift the culture of their organization.

Here is one such case study—

Challenge

Engage 5,000 employees in a leading global pharmaceutical company in a new set of values and behaviors that will guide the future of the organization.

Solution

We created an experience on SmartLab Transformation that was guided by the belief that the whole organization should play a role in defining the values and behaviors from the bottom-up.  

Using SmartLab Transformation, we designed a series of events for more than 5,000 employees to create a set of values and behaviors. We configured the platform’s decision apps to enable facilitated idea generation, rapid decision-making and knowledge sharing. The process enabled wide collaboration across the globe and through different time zones. This work resulted in a new set of organizational wide values, models and behaviors that were enshrined in the organization’s core values and ways of working.

SmartLab Transformation is the digital change platform with the tools, workflows, and apps to support transformation initiatives of all sizes—from design to deployment.

Request a demo to learn more about how SmartLab Transformation can deliver change in your organization.