Culture Change: How do you change an entire culture at once? Change can be a frightening thing for some people – and the idea of an entire culture change can be positively terrifying! But as much as we would all love to stay perpetually the same, sometimes change can be the difference between life and death. When the time comes for your business or organisation to adapt, culture change can help to keep you ahead of your competitors, on-target to achieve your goals, and incredibly productive. If you don’t believe me, just ask the possums! Culture Change means adapting to the challenges that you face We all know and understand the concept of adapting to survive, and there are countless examples of how creatures in the animal world have evolved to suit their surroundings. From the webbed feet of a duck to the long neck of the giraffe, physical change is often born out of necessity. But change isn’t necessarily about the physical things that we do or the daily routine associated with t

1. Culture Change: How do you change an
entire culture at once?
Change can be a frightening thing for some people – and the idea of an entire culture
change can be positively terrifying! But as much as we would all love to stay perpetually
the same, sometimes change can be the difference between life and death. When the
time comes for your business or organisation to adapt, culture change can help to keep
you ahead of your competitors, on-target to achieve your goals, and incredibly
productive. If you don’t believe me, just ask the possums!
Culture Change means adapting to the challenges that you face
We all know and understand the concept of
adapting to survive, and there are countless
examples of how creatures in the animal world
have evolved to suit their surroundings. From
the webbed feet of a duck to the long neck of
the giraffe, physical change is often born out of
necessity.
But change isn’t necessarily about the physical
things that we do or the daily routine
associated with the job. Instead, changing an
entire culture depends on a series of attitudinal and behavioural shifts, a new way of
approaching and looking at the world in order to be more successful and work as a well-
integrated team. The possums of the Australian outback understand this.
It was with great interest that I read a recent story about the way in which a possum
deals with predators. After all, they are small animals that don’t stand much of a chance
in direct confrontation. So they play dead – curl up on the floor and hope that the
predator will go away. Nine times out of ten, it works! But do you think that they all
decided to behave this way at once? Did a wave of culture change help possums to
survive the cutthroat world around them?

2. Culture Change starts with individual changes
The reality is that, on one sunny day, a possum had a great idea and, when it worked so
well, his tactic caught on. That is the essence of real, lasting changes in business – it
happens once individuals in your team begin to see the results of new behaviour. From
small, individual changes – the kind of changes that we can all cope with –
overall culture change can become a natural, easy to achieve effect.