Culture change in a telecom company supported by ONA

A company's organizational culture can take many forms. Observing the strengths of relationships, communication within teams, how decisions are made, the level of individualism and how team members relate to change can tell a lot of insights about company culture. It is also known that it  takes a lot of effort to shift culture when a new leader or management is appointed. Such a scenario might have the following pain points:

• New values, ideas and personal motivations clash with existing ones

• Finding the right tone of voice can be difficult

• Employees are not welcoming the changes

• The change process becomes slower and more time-consuming than expected

• Change is hindered by intense emotions

Organizational Network Analysis can minimize the gap between expectations and reality. Activating change agents is the fastest way to engage people in change and translate operational values into behavior. ONA allows you to identify agents or mobilizers, who are the most trusted employees. Others turn to them for advice and support during times of change. As an added bonus, working with strong mobilizers in your organization will shorten the timeframe of the change, minimize the investment required and improve efficiency and performance!

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the extent to which a corporation’s strength and efficiency can be influenced by its informal network has been well demonstrated. In addition to this external influence, a change of ownership occurred at a large telecom company in Hungary in the second half of 2018 which has set off a very strong wave of cultural change.

They  partnered with Maven7 to identify mobilizers who can increase engagement. They wanted to change this situation and that is why they decided to launch the Influence project.

After identifying over 200 influencers, 45 people who were the most active and motivated in their role were selected to form a Mobilizer team. Mobilizers in this case helped leadership to understand what concerns colleagues, what causes them difficulties, and in which areas they experience lack of information and uncertainty.

The Mobilizers provided valuable feedback about the organizational climate and how to integrate the results. As a next step, the company’s goal is to focus on the closer collaboration of Mobilizers and top management. They want the formal and informal structure to be better connected. By providing a forum for direct consultation and feedback, they hope that leaders will directly involve Mobilizers in relevant initiatives. In this way, managers will also gain a better idea of what is going on in a given organization or group through the lens of employees.