Diageo

Tatiana Sereno is a Senior HR Executive with 25 years of experience leading cultural transformation. She has worked with global companies like Diageo, Avon, Philips, and Unilever, focusing on high-performance teams, talent management, and organizational change. A trusted advisor to CEOs, she mentors startups and teaches HR at PUC/RS & FDC. Tatiana holds a master’s in business administration from PUC(SP) and participated in the Executive Development Program at Wharton Business School.

Through this article, Sereno emphasizes the importance of understanding organizational culture to effectively mobilize employees, foster change agility and implement sustainable, highlighting the role of collective learning, emotional intelligence and growth mindset.

Understanding the Culture of Organization

As described by Hostede,"culture is how you were raised. It developed while you grew up. With a computer metaphor, culture is the software of our minds. We need shared software to communicate. So, Culture is about what we share with those around us. In action in social life, culture constitutes the unwritten rules of the social game. These rules do not specify any details, but they specify the basic structure of the social landscape. They are about independence, belonging, love, hate, respect, fear and loyalty."

Understanding the culture is critical to mobilizing the employees in the shared vision and creating the proper symbolic rituals and communication. This is true for any social group that should be considered in your plan, for organizations, sub-groups as functions or sometimes as countries and regions in a global effort.

It is crucial to understand symbolic and meaningful actions to avoid apathy or boycotts in case your communication and actions simply do not mean anything to employees that you need to mobilize.

1. Cultural evolution is a reality and more importantly, a social movement, not an individual one.

Who had not been part of cultural transformations, at least in the past 15 years?  Whether you are leading, part of the employee's reference groups or just being in an organization that has been passing for changes, it is part of our daily lives.  Moreover, as Kelly Schwarzer in the article ‘Change Agility: How Successful Organizations Respond to Disruption to Udemy Site,’ described, change agility is the key factor of organizational success.

For it, four critical organizational capabilities are key:

1. They make learning a core business function.

2. They are ready for anything.

3. They think outside the box.

4. They tolerate ambiguity.

It is interesting how the individual concept of learning agility, developed by Korn Ferry and largely used in companies to identify individual potentials, has evolved into an organizational one.

As a famous Brazilian proverb, a single swallow does not make the summer. Most successful companies (and employees) understood the power of groups and collective and embraced continuous change and learning, reinforcing recognition mechanisms through group deliverables to the detriment of the individual and competitive ones.

"Understanding the personal moments for each leader and for each employee and their respective line managers is a crucial aspect of any successful change implementation"

2. Use a people-first approach for your change management strategy and Plan.

Havard Business School describes, in the article 5 critical steps in the change management process in their site:

1. Prepare the organization for change.

2. Craft a vision and plan for change.

3. Implement the changes.

4. Embed changes within company culture and practice.

5. Review progress and analyze results.

From my experience, I suggest that for step 1, the leadership preparation should be considered, taking into consideration the cultural aspects described in item 1. Remember that leaders are individuals passing through change as well as employees. Recognize it; it is crucial.

Therefore, it is an emotional process more than a rational one, so being timely is another critical path. Creating the best strategy and vision without understanding the importance and process of the individuals who will be passing or leading it will probably end up in general frustration or in a cynical and political narrative that does not mobilize and make the change sustainable.

A good culturally evolving plan will consider Elisabeth Kubler Ross's (1969)  seven stages of the change curve, initially described in her work about death and dying, as illustrated below.

A timely process with intentional catharsis, momentum and listening spaces is important as a strategic 5-year framework.  Understanding the personal moments for each leader and for each employee and their respective line managers is a crucial aspect of any successful change implementation.

3. Growth Mindset as the secret ingredient

My final remarks are that leading or dealing with change is hard, let's be honest. It is long-term and rewarded with a lot of short-term frustration and energy exhaustion, even more so for the ones leading the effort.

Exercising my Growth Mindset helps me pass all the curves and phases.  Aligned with Harvard Business School's definition: “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies and input from others) have a growth mindset. This is because they worry less about looking smart and put more energy into learning. When companies embrace a growth mindset, their employees report feeling far more empowered and committed; they also receive greater organizational support for collaboration and innovation.”

So, why am I so passionate about change? Why is it my professional credential? Learning is my locomotive. My focus on long-term outcomes, learning and people development gives me energy and purpose.