Managing Culture for Strategic Advantage Results
The leading division in a healthcare products company was known in the corporation for having a culture that, while it was a prestigious assignment, was hard-driving and competitive rather than collaborative. People from other divisions were reluctant to work there, and people within the division felt overworked and underappreciated. Nova’s intervention identified cultural strengths that included pride in delivering valuable health care products to customers, and the ability to pull together in a crisis. The cultural weaknesses which were perpetuating some of the liabilities were considerably reduced. Nova worked with multiple layers of management in the division to turn stellar individual contributors into high performance teams who began working with more senior management in courageous and trusting ways that had previously not been possible. Several major restructurings occurred smoothly as the culture prioritized collaborative functioning and valuing employees while still returning double-digit profits to the corporation.