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Leading Culture Change
13 January 2012:
The issue of cultural change loomed large in the presentation given by Véronique-Sophie Bounaud-Lemoine, Global Director Executive & Talent Management - Group HR at AXA Group and in the subsequent round table discussion. Over dinner at La Maison des Polytechniciens in Paris participants in the Executive Briefing continued to debate the role of leaders in transforming organisational culture and, indeed, whether such a process is possible or desirable – questions that we explored in the following article.
Catalysts for change
In 2010 AXA conducted a major review of its then business strategy, which had set targets that the insurance group wanted to reach by 2012. “Due to the financial crisis we were no longer able to multiply our revenues by two and our profits by three and so we had to revise our strategy,” explained Bounaud-Lemoine.
The review, which involved around 450 people from across AXA’s worldwide operations, resulted in a new strategic framework with three key objectives:
- Optimise the value of the group’s mature businesses
- Reap the benefits of being a global organisation
- Accelerate profitable growth, with an emphasis on emerging markets.
While these objectives described what AXA aimed to achieve, two pillars supporting all its other initiatives expressed how the group wanted to do business. These pillars - trust and achievement, and customer-centricity – in turn rested on the organisation’s culture and a leadership capable of turning AXA into a truly global company by inspiring and energising its people.
“To enact our strategy we had to transform our culture, to go from a command and control culture to a more inspiring and empowering leadership culture,” said Bounaud-Lemoine, adding that other desired changes included a shift away from “avoidance’ and towards a culture where people have the courage to tell the truth - even to those with power over them.
A cultural inventory carried out by an external consultancy renowned for its expertise in this field revealed that AXA still had some way to go before its culture matched these aspirations. The group therefore developed a modular training programme which aimed to equip managers with the competencies needed to lead their teams in more inspiring and empowering ways. Around 15,000 managers around the world have so far completed this programme, with another cultural inventory due to be carried out shortly to measure its impact.
The beliefs, values and norms that make up the culture the group wants to develop have also been embedded in a new leadership curriculum that is currently being put in place.
However, as Anne-Laure Doutriaux, County Manager, France, for Raytheon Professional Services pointed out, transforming the culture of an organisation is never an easy process either for an organisation’s workforce or its leaders. Even if people agree on an intellectual level that change is needed, they may struggle to modify their own behaviour, she said.
According to another of the participants at the Executive Briefing, these difficulties can be especially acute in global organisations. “Different [national] cultures have different levels of avoidance, for instance, and what counts as avoidance in one country isn’t avoidance in another one,” he said. “Something can be seen as normal in one country and as outrageous in another.”
Other participants suggested that a strong organisational culture can over-ride such national cultural differences. There was agreement around the table that it takes time, effort and, above all, effective leadership to create a culture that transcends local differences.
However, for one participant, the very notion of culture change was alien. “I work in an organisation that is highly decentralised but we have a very strong culture,” she said. “So we don’t talk about changing the culture but about reinforcing the culture.”
