RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE MANAGEMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE

ON THE EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS AT THE

INSTITUTION

“Culture is created and sustained by human beings - their values, needs, aspirations, fears and

behaviours” - Carolyn Taylor (2005).

In order for a culture to change, the leader must change and take responsibility for other’s responses

to him/her. A strong and focussed and co-ordinated effort from a group of influential members are

required to ensure a change in an established behaviour.

Culture is about messages sent. These messages communicate what is valued, important, and what

people do to fit in and be rewarded. Culture is defined by behaviour - what people do more than what

they say, symbols, and systems used to manage people and tasks.

Characteristics (enriching values) that enrich and benefit the whole in an organization are

performance, customer focus, teamwork, integrity, honesty, meritocracy, discipline, safety, innovation,

doing what we say we will, environmental awareness, developing our people, cost containment,

growth, service, caring for others, relationships, risk management, pursuit of excellence, continuous

improvement, fun, loyalty, and balance. Also, if selfish choices are made by departments, then the

organisation as a whole cannot grow in its entirety and departments might end up working against

each other.

However, typical things that we do not call values, yet we do value (selfish values) them, are money,

status, independence, staying out of trouble, avoiding conflict, power, winning over others, looking

good, keeping everyone on side, popularity, control, and being right. Enriching values do not only

benefit an individual, but also those around him and an organisation as a whole. Many cultures

consider the selfish values more important, which not only benefits the individual, but potentially at the

expense of others. If honesty and fairness to customers (mainly students in this case) is truly at the
top of the values hierarchy, you will act in this manner and are seen as trustworthy. Then you will

probably derive the desired profit, but it is not with this end in sight that a truly values-driven

organisation act honourably. A look at the way an organisation spends its time and money, especially

in times of pressure, reveals what they truly value. Behaviour, symbols and systems are defined by

an organisation’s values.

It is much easier to assume that people’s behaviour are their own fault. But people behave in a way

they believe will enable them to fit in and succeed and thus they behave primarily because of the

influence of their environment and messages they receive there from. A change in culture must be

implemented from the top to the bottom. Once the desired culture are put in place at the top team and

their direct reports, it should be pulled through to middle management, then to the front line

management, and finally to the front line.

Culture surveys on personnel, which measure the net effect of a series of behaviours, one-on-one

interviews that can, with proper insight, reveal the underlying values behind what was said, and

interviewing students (and all relevant customers) whose experience is the ultimate result of your

culture, will enable the university to understand the subtleties of its culture and what underpins and

sustains the culture. Values are different from vision which is a shared aspiration of what we are

going to do and achieve together. Values provide the trust that we are doing this as a group, rather

than a set of individuals. It gives us a sense of identity. Vision gives a sense of purpose.

For this specific scenario, I choose to focus on a people-first culture. It should be noted that once a

chosen culture with proper values are in place, important and relevant aspects from other types of

cultures will eventually be pulled into place. A people-first culture focusses on empowerment,

delegation, development, safety, care, respect, balance, diversity, and fun. This is a culture in which

people are valued, encouraged and supported. There exists the basic belief that human beings

respond and contribute best in an environment in which they feel valued. This applies to all

employees, regardless of gender, race, religion or seniority. This is rather a caring than a soft

approach. I believe that students will act in a more understanding way towards each other if they

experience on a daily basis good black (and any other relevant cultures) and white relationships in
their academic departments. It is therefor necessary to have a good representation of both cultures

in the workplace at all levels. Not only do we need to have a proper representation of the proportion

of relevant cultures in the workplace, but also the true relationships and respect for each other defined

by a people-first culture. Because it takes a long time to build systems, initiation can take place after

a required and well thought through culture for the university have been properly defined.

Possible areas of conflict that you might need to address are: the fear of changing tried and tested

work patterns and attitudes; the fear of failure; of not being able to produce what is expected of you

in the new organisation; fear of getting it wrong; breaking away from traditional tried and tested

methods; fear of being “put on” and ending up with a heavy workload; alienation by sectional

colleagues or creating jealousy within departments; losing one’s identity as a professional. (Wilson,

Wilson. 1999)

Schein (1980) suggested two approaches to managing conflict in-groups: Reduce the negative

consequences of group conflict by locating a common enemy, bringing leaders or subgroups of the

competing groups into interaction, locating a super-ordinate goal, and experiential inter group training.

Try to prevent group conflict by concentrating on super-ordinate goals, high interaction and frequent

communication between groups, and frequent rotation of members among groups or departments.

A people first culture:

A people-first cultural leader will coach, support and listen to his employees. Junior people must be

treated with the same level of respect and interest as their senior colleagues. Any form of

disrespectful behaviour (bullying, lack of performance feedback, aloofness, taking credit for the work

of others) is stamped out very quickly. Constructive challenge is encouraged - everyone’s opinions

are valued. Symbols of status are rare. Employee well-being metrics are robust and meeting

standards is expected. Trusted mechanisms exist to report non-compliance behaviour (sexual

discrimination, racism, stealing, etc.). Values high on the hierarchy list are trust, egalitarianism, and

diversity. Existing believes in this culture are that people are inherently trustworthy, other people can

always add to my original ideas, and diversity of age, gender, race, and sexual orientation add to a

team’s effectiveness. If your organisation has been through an extraordinarily difficult time, the shock
of this provides the catalyst that forces bold decisions previously avoided or to bring in a group of new

leaders. The following 6 areas are the ones in which culture has the greatest impact: Speed

(decision-making, implementation), accountability (consistency of delivery, no excuses, compliance),

rigour (risk-management, challenge), simplicity, collaboration (avoiding duplication, no silos, group

benefits overrides individual), attractiveness (staff loyalty, strong employment brand, having students

feel the people of UFS care). When an organisation does not value its people, it is quite simply a

horrible place to work and people with initiative and high self-confidence leave. An abusive culture

produces people that enter into a victim mind-set. Employees moan about their lot and just go through

the motions of the day. This is often particularly true at the front line, where the perks of work are

least. People are seen to be the problem. Systemic or process solutions are not thought through,

because management is in the habit of blaming others. The culture’s beliefs about its people

becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, it breeds disloyalty and low self-esteem. As people gain some

position of authority, they build walls around themselves, and find ways to meet their own needs and

treat their subordinates as they have been treated. Opportunities are taken to abuse the system,

through stealing, cheating and lying. Discrimination, sexual harassment, and bullying are common,

and those who reach positions of authority use their power.

Building or changing of a culture must be tackled with the same amount of vigour and discipline that

you would use to change any other component of your business. The domino effect: If you change

the mind-sets of leaders, it leads to a change in the behaviour of leaders. This leads to different

decisions being made by leaders and then to people attributing meaning to decisions which then leads

to new messages being received throughout the organisation about what now is valued. Then other

people in the organisation will change their behaviour to fit into the new norms. This will lead to further

reinforcement that the culture and its values have now changed. The result is new performance

outcomes based on the effect of the chosen values.

Certain mind-sets increase our ability to monitor and adjust how we interact with others - e.g. a

trusting relationship will change your behaviour towards each other. How we spend our time is

determined by what we think is important (influenced by our hierarchy of values). Time used to

contribute by building a desired culture includes the coaching of team members, building and
communicating vision, talking to students, finding best practice, and learning how they do it, and giving

performance feedback. Decisions should include the following: Rejecting sub-standard work,

favouring internal promotions based on embedded values, supporting and sticking with a team

decision once it has been made, removing non-performers from the team.

If a leader continually emphasises the importance of understanding customers (students), over time,

it will influence the beliefs and values of those people who report to him.

Ways to influence people’s beliefs and values:

Influence forums: Many people in your audience may already hold the values and beliefs, to some

degree, you are seeking. Assume the best of your people and work with them on that level. Be

specific in the detail and why you belief what is being put forward is different from what is occurring

now and provide the business logic for what you want. Do not berate actions and decisions from the

past. Play to your personal style and help your particular leaders place themselves in situations where

they appear authentic, so that their value-set comes through as real.

Exposure to others who have been successful. Read books and distribute it to all your leaders.

Encourage discussion on what they have read. Invite the CEO’s, HR, and CFO’s of successful

organisations for talks. Took your top team, all at once, on a quality tour of top five companies in their

field. Their power of returning home will be much greater than it would have been if they were sent

one by one.

Values workshops for individuals and teams: In the long run you want everyone to hold the same

interpretations of what your values mean and these workshops provide the opportunity to build critical

mass. Mix people that do not work with each other every day to form new networks and different

perspectives and remove the impact of a team leader that might disadvantage individuals.

Bringing in new people: This should not be your principle strategy. As your culture change, a number

of people will end up leaving. In the early stages of culture change, it is the most effective course of

action to bring in just a few new people into carefully selected roles. Their real contribution comes

from their ability to role model certain behaviours within teams.

Ways to influence people’s feelings:

Feelings are influenced by a desire for potential pleasure and a desire to be protected from pain.

Making a difference - a worthwhile contribution to a cause: Framing people’s work so that they see

it as meaningful, as adding value in a real way, is the real task here. Wen an organisation chooses

to give to the community in which it exists, it taps into motivation which is beyond making a profit or

meeting targets.

Achievement - the satisfaction of achieving a goal: Make outcomes much more short-term. Find

many small wins along the way, and train people to define them and recognise these wins as they

occur. It is important to clarify what success will look like, having a reasonable strong relationship

between individual effort and outcome, having means of measuring when success was reached, and

giving feedback to the individual within a short time frame.

Being valued - receiving recognition and reward for a contribution: People wants to feel valued for

what they have achieved, what they think, and what they feel they are. Valuing outcomes: Financial

rewards must be lined closely to outcomes. Care should be taken that the organisation’s values are

not compromised by selfish behaviour for gaining financial rewards. Other forms of recognition are

important, through both formal and informal channels such as contributor reward of the month.

Valuing ideas: Have lunches between leaders and more junior staff. Ask new employees what can

be done differently. Invite cross sections of people to strategy sessions. Create rituals for learning

from each other. Valuing feelings: Bring leaders together with people for the purpose of listening and

valuing someone else and how they feel.

Helping others - supporting, developing or assisting another person: Under the right circumstances

people will become highly motivated through opportunities to help each other. Satisfaction comes

from seeing another person grow and develop, or solve a difficult problem, as a result of one’s input.

Decreasing negative motivation: Negative motivation produces defensive behaviours such as mistrust,

avoidance of responsibility and blaming others, a need to win over others and never been seen to

lose, a need to be liked, fear of making a mistake and being punished, bullying, and fear of change.

When we are feeling defensive we are much less likely to change, we retreat into a shell and become
rigid.

Creating a trusting environment reduces defensive behaviour. If we don’t know somebody, we are

more likely to interpret negatively what we see of them. People should be exposed to each other.

Familiarity is more likely to allow us to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Organise lunches with

a range of different people. Arrange out of work activities. Teams are the backbone of your culture,

and a jey opportunity to send messages about our expected behaviour. Effective teams need clear

goals and purpose, clear roles and accountabilities, clear team process, and good relationships.

Important trust relationships include: Individuals across the value chain who depend on each other;

Executive team and groups of individuals throughout the organisation, Head office roles traditionally

seen as controlling. Set up sessions with strict rules of communication and let team members clear

the air with positive as well as negative characteristics seen by each other. Actions such as blaming

others, justifying behaviour, defensiveness, and denial should be put to an end. There is a subtle, but

crucial difference between desire to win, and the defensiveness associated with never being prepared

to lose. Behaviours associated with this include a self-sufficiency to the point of never sharing

information or asking for help, the use of meetings as an opportunity to ‘show off’ and look good, and

a conviction that one is right and closing off other options - this is the most subtle mind-set and cultural

trait in terms of its cost to business performance. Competitive cultures operate this way all the time.

The defensiveness in this behaviour is the inability to admit to weakness and many cultures seem to

encourage this trait, perhaps by the large egos of those who have reached its highest echelons.

Looking good must come to mean winning as a team, helping others to succeed, admitting mistakes

and learning. A need to be liked sits behind much of the unwillingness to take tough decisions, give

feedback on poor performance, tackle poor behaviour and confront unsatisfactory behaviour and will

limit leaders’ ability to hold the line on the standards. The fear of making a mistake and being

punished includes working incredibly long hours and being unable to distinguish between things which

really do need to be perfect, and those where reasonable standards are sufficient. This behaviour

may not be linked to any recent experience and is only defensive because it is obsessive. Time is not

used effectively and too much are being spent on elements of very little value, while other more

important items get overlooked. Bullying is often overseen by those in senior leadership positions.
Bullies are tough with those who are smaller than they are, and sweet with those they perceive as

stronger than they are. This behaviour is a defensive response to being attacked or hurt themselves.

Bullies have learned that attack is the best form of defence. This behaviour produces fear in others,

and shuts down communication. They are closed off from input and do not hear (or are not told)

information about customer’s views, problems with deadlines, budget over-runs or illegal activities.

This can cause others to fudge or bury problems. People who fear change attempt to stay away from

the unknown, which feels too vast, too unstructured,and cling to what they know. their reactions will

be presented in rational ways like: “It didn’t help before.” or “It is time to settle down what we are

doing, rather than start a whole lot of new initiatives.” The defence is polite stonewalling. The words

may be supportive, but it is by their actions that you must identify these individuals in order to work

with them and bring them with you.

Ways to influence people’s level of awareness:

To change the level of awareness, you need to design opportunities which will give them balance,

restful quietness and perspective. Balance is achieved by changes in working hours, ensuring people

take their annual leave, softening the lines between work and home, and work environments which

are different. Restful quietness is achieved by meditation, religious practise, music, driving or cycling

on empty roads, and sporting activities with a rhythm carried alone - e.g. running and swimming.

Perspective is achieved by time away from the office in teams, workshops, and conferences,

opportunities to move around the organisation, feedback tools, coaching and therapy, personal

development programmes, opportunities to learn from others, and exposure to others whose problems

are greater than one’s own.

References

Wilson, C., Wilson, J. (1999), Cultural change: its effect on the University of Hong Kong estates
office. Facilities Vol 17, no. 3/4, pp79-85. ISSN: 0263-2772.

Taylor, C. (2005), Walking the talk. Building a culture for success. Random House (Pty) Limited,
South Africa

Schein, E.H. (1980), Organizational Psychology. 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.