So we've looked at identifying some action questions, which help us to identify what it is we need to be doing, and start to focus our attention. We'll also look to the appropriate microscope, which you can use to identify what you might need to change in relation to your processes to encourage the right behavior, your people skills and knowledge to make sure they have the capability to deliver what you're asking them. And also the behavioral changes that might be required. I've described this next section as the mechanisms. So these are the things that you're going to have to do in order to be a catalyst if you like for change. So in themselves, they sound fairly bland activities, workshops and meetings and discussions, obviously, is what goes on in those that will really make the difference, but you're going to need to shedule some of these things in and actually have a plan for delivering them.
So one of the important mechanisms is senior level accountability. So do we have that accountability at senior level for our culture? So we'd want to introduce that we don't have current senior level accountability for the way that people behave in our culture, that's something you probably want to look at. We need a change plan. So we need to put in place a plan that says, right, in order for us to deliver this change, we're going to need to do this, this this in this order, and by certain date, so you have a plan, just like you would any other projects. We might think about our recognition and reward processes.
So currently, are they rewarding the right things? If not, we might need to change them. So are we going to change our reward system to reward the things that we really want in order to deliver the change that we're looking for? Simple things like job roles and accountabilities including the behavior that we're looking for into those job roles and accountabilities is a really good start, it means that you can talk about them during appraisals, and so on. And it's, it's a, it's a standard, that everybody who works here, we expect to behave in a certain way. It's worth writing that down in itself is not the be all end all.
But it does set the right standard. So through performance reviews, appraisals and so on, you can start to talk about those accountabilities and how people are behaving within the requirements, if you like, of this new culture. So managers want to take responsibility for how their teams are behaving. So they actually see that as being part of their responsibility as a manager are the mechanisms and yeah, definitely targeted management training. So this reminds us really one of our other courses, which is all about training. And this is a really good example of how management training can in this setting be really powerful because it can be targeted to what sort of behavior you're looking for.
If it's just generic management training, what is it we're trying to target, but if it's part of a call to change program that is very targeted, is to try and produce managers who are behaving in a way that helps create the culture we're looking for. You could or you may need to introduce some workforce awareness sessions. So if particularly if you're looking for your workforce to get involved in doing something, like coming up with new ideas, or helping improve something, or intervening when they see something dangerous, and you need to get them clued up so that they understand what it is they're looking for, and how to act when they see it. So you might want to do some change workshops. So you'd start Talk about how people need to act and behave in this, this new culture. But don't forget, the workforce has been a part of this project right from the beginning.
So if you haven't involved them at the beginning, this could be a problem. Because if as managers we come up with the culture we want, and we decide the behaviors that we're looking for those workshops will be really tough. Because the members of the team will just It feels like they're being forced to do things that they don't necessarily understand or want to do. Whereas if they've been involved in putting that vision together in the first place that was said, That of course, that means that they're much more likely to be engaged in that process. Definitely something I found during these sorts of projects. You might want to get managers to learn how to do proper coaching.
So as opposed to just telling people what to do or giving them advice, you might get your you might get managers to learn how to do coaching through asking questions. And helping the team to work through the solution to the problem themselves. You might do some on the shoulder coaching, getting somebody into actually spending some time with the workforce, attending some meetings, talking to members of the teams. And so you may also want to do some executive coaching with the senior team, the directors or the board, because their role in this is really, really important to help encourage the sorts of behaviors that you're looking for more mechanisms, again, regular workshops, they're reading consistent communication channels. So currently, you might, your channels of communication might not be strong enough, so you might need to change those people are constantly updated about what's happening. You know, I'm sure that one of the biggest complaints members of teams have is that we're never told anything, communication is terrible.
So that's something that you might want to look out. Included in that a listening session. So we all know communication is a two way process. So how do we create environments where people can continue to talk about how they feel about the culture and how things are going? ongoing measurement, whilst understanding that you're not going to see improvement from day one, you might want to have a way of measuring how things are going over the months and indeed years. And I would also suggest having credible issue raising mechanisms.
So I suppose you could call that whistleblowing processes. But in terms of culture change, it could be that there might be times in this culture change project where you really need somebody to put the hand up and say, we've got a problem here. So you might need to create some mechanisms that make that easy. And credible means that they feel it's worth doing, they're going to be listened to. Okay, so what what we have here is just a simple Gantt chart really so and this is the sort of Gantt chart we use in in the course about improving our process. essays.
And it's just a way of tracking our projects and identifying what needs to be done in what order and what things are dependent upon other things. So you might be able to see there some activities there, such as agreeing management accountabilities adjusting job accountabilities, and things like whistle blowing processes, and so on. So these are actual actions that we'd want to take that somebody's going to need to have to do. So if there's a workshop involved, then honestly, somebody's got to run that workshop. Somebody's got to organize the workshop, invite people and organize that. If there's accountabilities to be changed.
Somebody's got to do that. Somebody's got to do that piece of work. If it's about looking at management accountabilities and senior teams responsibilities, that's got to be agreed and so on. So there is some nuts and bolts stuff that has to be done with culture change. It's not all that fluffy stuff. And but there is a battle Really between identifying activity where you get people talking and thinking and creating the right narrative.
But in order to make that happen, there's got to be some tangible things that are done that are actually sheduled in. We don't shedule them in, what will happen is that other things will take precedence. So that's what tends to happen, you get busy. If you've not planned in that busy period and how you're going to handle that, the culture change, stuff will just get get left by the, by the wayside, because other things will take precedence. So it's really important during this phase during this planning process, to think about the implications of this culture change project, on your organization on your business. It might be that you need to take longer than you thought.
It might be that you're going to have to have periods where you just let it take over because that's when you're really busy. But just being realistic and honest about those situations is really important. Plan your project around this particular plan is one that you're you're probably going to do after you've done your goal setting. So if you remember the process you start with the reason why you identify that through some workshops obviously has to be organized, you then do some current state analysis, which involves, again, perhaps surveys and talking to people and doing focus groups and so on, that two needs to be organized, you'll then need to do some goal setting activities. And in other words, getting your team together and talking about what the culture should be like and what that would be like how you'd measure it, and so on. So some activities involved there.
Once you've done that, then you're in the position that you can then start to plan your actual improvement process. So as you see a call to change projects as being sort of in two parts. The first part is where you get yourself ready and you can then design you're called to change plan. And this particular Gantt chart is showing the second part of your project, which is what you're actually going to do in order to change it. So again, going back to our case study, this is what the business did. And part of the process was to actually have discussions with the workforce, about how to put ideas forward.
So the question was kind of asked the workforce well, currently, do you know how to put ideas forward to create this culture of continuous improvement where everybody's involved in it? And the answer was probably not really. So the question was asked, How do you want to do that? And so a process was created for people putting forward ideas and delivering them. We looked at creating facilitator roles where facilitators within the organization would help run projects or drive projects, but they would do so through a coaching methodology and getting the teams involved to actually make those changes happen. Because things like briefings or workshops were planned.
And management training was also plugged in. So these were all things that were identified as things that we needed to do or the business need to do. And we of course, helped them with some of those things. But this was about the actions that needed to be taken, and plugging them in. So everybody knew what was happening. And when we also obviously included workforce awareness sessions, which was really about helping people to identify what improvement was.
It's not just about making life easier for me, as a member of the workforce is about how we can increase performance and reduce waste. Going back to the case study at Jordan Ryvita. We looked at having behavioral safety sessions planned or we got people together to talk about what behavioral safety was. And we did some coaching and support planning there. And ongoing measures were put in place a lot. A lot of that was of course, done by the business.
We were there to help and support. So this screen is actually just reminding us where we've got to with our change project. So as you might remember, at the beginning of this program, we looked at why you might want to change your culture, it's really important to identify the reasons. The senior managers certainly should be involved in that. Because that's often the point at which is identified as a business. We need to do something about this.
But it would also be a good idea to involve some of the workforce to to identify what are the strong reasons why we want to do something. And you'll probably remember there are two types of reasons why it could be because we want to avoid something terrible happening like we saw at the beginning of culture problems in banks and oil rigs and so on health care. Or it could just be because we've got a goal, we've got a vision, we want to create a culture of something good innovation or care. or continuous improvement or whatever it might be, you then need to look at your current state. So what is your culture like now? do a survey.
By all means, but don't rely purely on your survey, perhaps do some focus groups where you get people to talk about the current state, put their point of view forward, do some on the shoulder observation possibly start to observe the way that people behave around each other in meetings, in morning discussions, when problems occur, and so on. And then do some analysis of the survey of the focus groups of the observations. So you're really putting that together and building a picture of what the current culture is, like? do some work on goal setting? What sorts of culture do you want? So do the cross functional visioning sessions which will include members of the workhorse teams, managers, there's many different people as you can.
Once you've got Have those visioning sessions completed, then you'll need to consolidate that. So that you have a kind of report that says this is this is what the workforce, the organization, the managers together, this is what they want. identify some very specific goals, what the differences will be, and put that together into a joint vision along with those goals and communicate it everywhere. Next start to do some actual planning. So, as I'm answering questions, what are we going to need to change in order to deliver this change in our culture? What are we going to need to do create an action plan?
Decide who's going to do it? Who's going to do what? organize it? workshops, changes in documentation, changes in process, all of those sort of slightly technical things but need to be done? How are we going to do that how we're going to deliver this project, identify the change mechanisms. Plan your workshops, and definitely arrange targeted management training that is really now targeted to delivering your improvement as opposed to just generic management training.
So many of your managers may have had sort of bog standard management training. Well this is about is doing training for managers that relate to how they are going to encourage members of their team to behave in a certain way or to look at certain things a different way, or to have an emphasis on different things. So that really just leaves us with implement and review