Change Management is Hard - How to Succeed with Culture Change in 2024
Culture is what allows you to attract, retain, and develop your staff. That’s why I’m so excited to have Rebecca Marchiafava on the podcast today, to discuss culture change and to help you successfully lead or navigate that change.
Rebecca is the founder of Culture Work LLC, where she consults with organizations to develop healthy environments and improve well-being at work. An experienced speaker, facilitator, and consultant, Rebecca is passionate about building workplaces that are engines of health and well-being.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
03:54 How Rebecca's career in trauma-informed care informs her work as an organizational culture consultant
08:02 Signs that your nonprofit workplace culture needs to change
13:21 Challenges a nonprofit might face when creating culture change
18:04 How L&D can help – and its limitations when it comes to culture change
23:09 Tips to navigate a culture change
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How to Succeed with Culture Change in 2024
What if I could tell you exactly what you needed to do to lead a culture change effectively?
Culture can be a complex thing.
In addition to working inside a national nonprofit, among many other organizations, and experiencing workplaces that were strong, and others that were challenging, I'm also currently building a team at Skill Masters Market.
And as I build this team, one of the things I continue to ask myself is, what do I want the culture of the team to be?
I know it's easier to start in the way that you want to go than to change things later. And with my experience in talent management, I know workplace culture is a huge part of the employee experience.
“Your culture is what allows you to attract, retain, and develop your staff.”
According to Gallup's website, only two in ten US employees feel connected to their organization's culture.
Your culture is what allows you to attract, retain, and develop your staff. And it helps create a more productive workforce, which means the people you serve in your nonprofit feel the impact.
Your mission depends on it.
That’s why I had Rebecca Marchiafava on episode 57 of the podcast, to discuss culture change and change management.
“As nonprofits, we are here to help create healthier people and communities. How can we make sure that we are doing that internally in our own operations and within our own culture?” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca is the founder of Culture Work LLC, where she consults with organizations to develop healthy environments and improve well-being at work. An experienced speaker, facilitator, and consultant, Rebecca is passionate about building workplaces that are engines of health and well-being.
In this blog post, we’re covering the following:
1) Signs that Your Nonprofit Workplace Culture Needs to Change
There's been a lot of talk about culture for a long time in the nonprofit and talent management space. There's also more recently been a push for well-being in the workplace. But as a nonprofit, how do you know when your workplace culture needs to change?
Rebecca first points out the importance of prevention.
“Culture is something that’s important to be on everyone's mind. Even if you're not experiencing those kinds of critical pain points. Because a lot of things, even one new person joining our team, can change the culture in positive ways and negative ways. So it's always important to be thinking about culture, being mindful of it, and even consistently assessing it, even if you feel like things are going well.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
However, for signs of cultural issues, Rebecca gives us four things to look out for:
1. Breakdown of trust, communication, and collaboration
Rebecca points out that this can occur in various ways.
“A really common one is when you see ‘us versus them’ attitudes developing within an organization. So that could be within a team, that could be between teams, that could be between frontline staff and leadership.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
2. Power imbalances
Rebecca highlights that power dynamics are a big issue when we're looking at defining culture.
“If organizations really intentionally work to as much as possible, kind of minimize power imbalances, what that does is, it empowers everyone to contribute, to speak up, to trust that their voices will be heard and that they matter within the organization.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
You can identify this if staff fear making mistakes and fear honest and open feedback.
“If everyone seems like they're getting along great all the time and there's never any disagreement, even though that might feel good on the surface, I would say that's actually an indicator that there are some culture issues. Because people who do disagree, probably don't feel safe to disagree or feel like that would be something that is okay to do. But it's really important when we're working together, that we can disagree, that we can engage in productive conflict with one another. And that really drives our best work and great collaboration.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
3. High-stress environment as the norm
This is something that does happen in nonprofit spaces.
“Things are always urgent. Everything's always stressful. Even if we are there to provide services to clients in the community, it's still really important to manage stress.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
4. Not being able to focus on proactive leadership
If leaders are spending way more time putting out fires than being able to focus on proactive leadership, that would be another big sign.
2) Challenges a Nonprofit Might Face With Culture Change
One of the challenges Rebecca highlights is that nonprofits are not always incentivized to work on culture.
“So when we think about what are nonprofits being funded to do, it's usually focused on those direct services. It's not so much focused on building a healthy internal culture. So one of the things I like to talk about is how these things go together, and how when we really focus on building a healthy culture internally, it creates more consistency and stability for our client services and community services as well.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
This is not necessarily something that nonprofits are expected to do, funded to do, and given the resources to do. And Rebecca points out that being under-resourced in this area is a big challenge.
“There's a culture that is not in any way just within individual nonprofits, but within the system overall, that tells nonprofits that they need to do the absolute most with the absolute fewest resources. And I think this really contributes to a broad culture and mindset that we need to constantly self-sacrifice.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Being able to have healthy workforces within the nonprofit space that can do good and meaningful work without sacrificing their health is so important.
3) How Learning and Development Can Help with Culture Change
Training plays a big role in helping to support a culture change.
“When we're thinking about culture change, one example that comes to mind for me is manager training. We see this in many fields, not just in the nonprofit field. A lot of times people are promoted into management positions without necessarily being provided effective training.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
What are the expectations for managers?
How are managers expected to support and engage their teams to achieve what they need to achieve?
“When it comes to culture, yes, leaders really set the tone. Leaders really set the culture. But managers are in such a powerful position to impact frontline staff’s day-to-day work and experience in organizations.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca also points out that making people aware of the organization's culture as you hire and onboard them is also key.
“What are the ways that training fits into that in terms of building skills and knowledge and also fostering connections? When we create these learning experiences, there's so much room for facilitating connection, and really setting a tone in trainings, and things like that, that help demonstrate what the culture of the organization can be.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Fostering connections resonates with me because I talk a lot about trust in training. And anytime you're bringing people together especially in a synchronous environment, you have the ability to build relationships, often cross-functionally. And you have the ability to establish trust, and trust is needed for training to be successful.
Training is not, however, always the right solution.
“One way to not accomplish culture change is to approach it from a compliance-based mindset.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca explains that when an organization's leadership views training as ticking a box, it's not going to be sufficient to achieve the change necessary. Leaders need to be encouraged to think beyond training and think more holistically about approaches to resolving issues related to workplace culture.
4) Tips to Navigate Culture Change
1. Break out of the compliance mindset.
“We might need systems and checklists and things, but the biggest thing that I can say is assess the situation. I think a lot of times leaders feel like there is a major issue and action needs to be taken. And maybe that's the case. But I really advocate for taking the time to assess the situation” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca points out that this can be in the form of an internal assessment, but it can also be helpful to bring in an external consultant or somebody that people may feel more comfortable speaking with.
“It's not just about quantitative data. And it's not just about what we as leaders think or see. So be open to perspectives that differ from ours, challenging our own internal defensiveness that may come up as leaders.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca emphasizes that even if you feel the need to rush into action, taking a pause, assessing the situation, and then deciding how to act can help you to take more aligned action.
2. Build trust through daily interactions
“Following through on what you say you're going to do as a leader, being careful to not over-promise, being clear about what you can or cannot do, being clear about what people can expect from you, what they can't expect. All of that is really important. Because even if it's not what they want to hear if you are saying something and you follow through on that, that builds trust.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca emphasizes that she’s not saying become a people-pleaser, rather she’s saying be careful about what you say you're going to do and then follow through on it. And if circumstances change, communicate that. She is advocating for “a culture of responsiveness within reason and acknowledgment of people and their needs.”
3. Prioritize your well-being
“Leader well-being has a big impact on organizational culture. And if leaders are showing burnout, if they are constantly overwhelmed, constantly stressed, that's actually not good for the organization.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
Rebecca highlights that it is okay to set boundaries and to get really clear on what your core responsibilities are.
“I think leaders are expected to self-sacrifice so much, but that's actually not good for the culture. And it's not a great model for other staff members and employees.” - Rebecca Marchiafava
I love that Rebecca brought up prioritizing your own well-being. I actually have a couple of podcast episodes focused on well-being that you can check out if this resonates with you.
→ Episode 38: Dealing with Corporate Burnout? One Easy Way to Manage Stress as a Nonprofit Leader with Jessie Pagliari
→ Episode 30: Why Well-Being Is The Secret Sauce to Change Management with Mandy Sharp Eizinger
Rebecca’s parting words are, “Get curious about your culture. Really think about it, and what's working and what's not. And if you're in a position to do it, I would say as a leader, if you're not already, I recommend taking steps to assessing the culture and working on the things that aren't working for your staff and for yourself.”
To hear the full conversation I had with Rebecca Marchiafava on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 57.
The Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective
Do you wish you could connect with other nonprofit learning and development leaders?
I know what it feels like to want someone to bounce ideas off of and to learn from, someone who really understands you and your work. Imagine if you could have a simple way to meet people in the field, ask questions, and share information.
That's why I created the Nonprofit Learning and Development Collective – so nonprofit L&D, talent management, and DEI leaders can connect with each other quickly and easily in a virtual space.
When you join this community, you will walk away with a new, diverse, and powerful network – and a sounding board for your staff development needs.
So if you're ready to exchange ideas and collaborate with your peers, come join the Nonprofit L&D Collective.
