When you’re looking to change the culture, where do you start? Hopefully the answer isn’t that you see something you fancy in another organisation and dive straight in trying to copy it. Equally hopefully, as you follow a measured pathway from understanding where you are now through defining strategy and values and onwards towards implementation you don’t neglect the most important factor in transformation success; your people.

It’s an understandable, if unforgivable, mistake to make. When you’re caught up in defining the broad sweep of future glory; when vision and values, behaviours and attributes swirl through your thoughts and infuse your every waking moment then it can seem as though the drive to change has already happened and all that is now required is to live the future.

But however much you want your people to change; unless they are helped to change then the end result will be confusion, disappointment and failure. Let’s just look at one example. When seeking to instil a culture of innovation in the organisation, one of the key traits is that of collaboration. And collaboration is easy, isn’t it? After all, all it requires is teamwork on a different scale and you already have teams and people that already talk to each other, so what’s the difference? But teamwork in a hierarchy is nothing like collaborative teamwork for innovation; and positively interacting with people, sharing knowledge and drawing out the best from each other is a world apart from simply chatting with colleagues.

So if you want an innovation culture, more importantly if you want your people to be engaged in the innovation ideal then you have to give them the training they require. Training in communication and collaboration, in ideas sharing, in creativity and in listening may all be required. And before you rush off and start organising courses for your people, don’t forget that the same level of training may be required for the executive and leadership teams as well. After all, how can you expect your people to change their behaviours if you are unable to communicate the new ideals effectively? Moreover, how can you expect your people to collaborate and be open to ideas if the top team still seems as shut off and distant as ever?

Successful culture change comes from following a structured and defined pathway but true success will only arise when people are put at the heart of that change. If you’d like to learn more about shaping the future and building a culture of innovation feel free to email Cris at cris@thefutureshapers.com or visit www.thefutureshapers.com for more information on how Cris and his team help some of the worlds smartest companies succeed through innovation.