Principle: Energised Change Culture

Organizational energy is the aggregation of every individual’s effort towards achieving the organization’s goals. The term “effort” is used in this situation because organizational energy is not just about the work done by the staff, but how committed the entire team is, in terms of emotion, behaviour and cognition. An energized change culture enables the organization to achieve its goals more effectively.

How Energised Change Culture is Achieved

An energised change culture is achieved by the following:

• Senior Management’s Drive: Senior management commitment is the first principle of portfolio management. Providing commitment is not limited to providing funding and resources. The senior leadership needs to communicate constantly and motivate everyone within the organization to achieve portfolio goals.
• Clear visibility from strategic goals to personal objectives: Similar to the link between strategy and project benefits, there should also be a link between strategy and personal objectives of key individuals. Organizational strategy is achieved through the portfolio. Portfolio is made of projects and programmes. Finally, people carry out projects. Connecting the organization’s goals all the way down to individual goals, with role descriptions, will play an important role in creating an energized change culture.
• Employee engagement strategy: An “engaged employee” is one who is enthusiastic about their work and takes positive action to further the organization’s reputation and interests. An engaged employee would know how their work contributes for the organization’s achievements. Keeping employees aware of how their projects and programmes benefit the organization as a whole and how they can personally benefit when the organization achieves its strategic goals, is what employee engagement should achieve.
• Right level of formality: The culture of each organization determines the right level of bureaucracy. Some organizations may be highly process-oriented, while some organizations may be able to get things done informally. Finding the right balance is important for the portfolio management to be successful. Portfolio management itself consists of processes. The level of formality in implementing processes, should be according to the organization’s culture.

Best Practices for Generating an Energised Change Culture

The following are the best practices for generating an energised change culture:

• Organizational energy cannot be throttled infinitely: Organizational energy is maintained through right amount of workload, rewards and recognition, capacity to absorb change and motivational factors. If these factors are not assessed and maintained, organizational energy may move from positive to negative rapidly. Organizational energy cannot be gained by sending out communications and information only.
• Listening to team members: The leadership also should listen attentively to team members, especially those who are working at ground level. This motivates team members and can also generate useful ideas.

Written by Inham Hassen

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