Buch “Culture Change” - Winfried Berner

Anyone can make a good start. That is particularly true of culture projects: you have a mission statement or a set of leadership principles drawn up, devote a management conference to the subject, then send a cascade of workshops rolling through the entire company - and then what? How do you sensibly carry on from there?! Once you have begun in this or a similar way, it becomes difficult to give that start a good continuation. Many such projects duly fall asleep once they have shot their bolt and the line managers decide that, after all those time-consuming discussions, it is finally time to get back to the day-to-day business.

A coherent methodology for culture change.

Changing and developing corporate cultures is one of the hardest, but also one of the most fascinating challenges that change management has to offer. What it comes down to, after all, is changing the behaviour of a great many people. The awkward part is that the overwhelming majority of them are entirely at ease with the way they behave today. So why should they change anything about it, simply because a project group has hit on the idea of defining a new target culture? Certainly not just because someone has pressed a more or less impressive brochure into their hands setting out how they are to think and act from now on.

An approach thought through to the end

The key to successful culture change is a well-thought-out methodology that maps the entire route, from a clean definition of the goal to the actual implementation - and retention - of the target culture, and not merely the first stretch of it. It has to explain not only how to arrive at a meaningful target picture, but above all answer the question of what should induce those same people, entirely at ease with the way they behave today, to behave differently in future. And that will certainly take more than well-designed brochures and urgent appeals.

What is special about “Culture Change”? How does it differ from other books on corporate culture?.

A focus on change

The focus of “Culture Change” is not on describing, reflecting on and analysing corporate culture, but on changing it. For successful culture change, reflection and analysis are a necessary but not a sufficient condition. “Culture Change” offers you a methodology for culture change that is both theoretically grounded and proven in practice. Not a collection of clever thoughts on why culture matters and how it ideally ought to be, but a systematic approach that shows you how to actually reach your change objectives. Numerous practical examples illustrate what can be done wrong and right in culture change - some of them mistakes I tried out with my own hands and that you need not necessarily repeat.

Steering the substantive and the social process in parallel

The art lies in mastering two quite different challenges in parallel. The first is the substantive process: deriving the target culture from the strategy, finding out the reasons behind today’s behaviour and, finally, making sure that behaving differently in future makes sense to the people concerned from their own point of view. The second is the social process: bringing employees, managers and the works council along - and also making sure that the client does not get left behind by the shift in understanding that is taking place and then, possibly, lose confidence in their own culture project.

A practical orientation on solid theoretical ground

What readers and reviewers praised most about “Change!” was its clear language, its convincing analysis and its marked practical focus. “Culture Change”, too, does not lose itself in long theoretical treatises, but brings a wealth of practical examples that show best what really matters. Yet true to Kurt Lewin’s principle that “there is nothing so practical as a good theory”, the book delivers not only a great many methods and practical tips, but builds on a solid professional foundation of psychology, behavioural ecology and management science. In this way it brings the state of research together with extensive practical experience from numerous culture change projects.

”Compelling and relevant to practice” – extracts from reviews of the first edition.

Press reviews

“From a practitioner’s perspective, he explains why corporate culture makes the difference as a competitive factor, what corporate culture actually is, how it comes about, how it takes effect and what logic it follows, and by what methodology change can be set in motion. A great deal has already been published on corporate culture, but not in this compelling, practice-relevant form.” Rasche Nachrichten

“Roter Reiter verdict: a comprehensive guide for HR managers, trainers and senior managers who have so far not dared to take on the subject of ‘change management’ (…). Berner’s explanations and tips are written in accessible language and, thanks to the many case studies, transfer easily to the daily reality of mid-sized companies.” ManagementJournal

“GetAbstract commends the book to all entrepreneurs and managers who want to know how to improve the culture of their company.” getAbstract

And this is what readers said about the first edition.

Extracts from Amazon reader reviews

“Not one of the typical systemic-theory books. Thank goodness, one is almost tempted to say, (…) the writer clearly comes from practice. (…) Verdict: there is much to praise - fluently and clearly written, a thorough engagement with the subject, intelligent and workable approaches, helpful ideas for implementation. Little, by contrast, to criticise.” Ingo Kallenbach

“The author’s website is already extremely informative, and my expectations of the book were accordingly high. Expertise in concentrated form, and well written.” Frank aus Der Wieschen

“Winfried Berner is an experienced consultant who has been at home with change management and corporate culture for more than 25 years. That practical experience shows on every page of the work. (…) Another quality that certainly stands out: Berner illustrates his arguments very aptly with short examples from practice, in which the author’s own consulting work is unmistakable. (…) … worth reading from front to back.” Stefan Teuber

“Winfried Berner’s new book is worth reading, exceptionally practical and intellectually substantial. A clear ‘must’ for every change manager. (…) It is one of Winfried Berner’s very great strengths that he puts this exploring, this careful observation, in the foreground, and that he can set out the origins, development and effects of culture so clearly before our eyes. Berner has the professional equipment to understand what he is looking at. That equipment comes in equal parts from his twenty-five years of practice and from his vast knowledge of psychology, social psychology, sociology and business administration, which he brings to bear on the subject and with which he can explain a great deal.” Paul Krummenacher

“Together with Winfried Berner’s other book with the case studies, this book is a standard reference for anyone who has to deal with organisational development, change management and culture work in companies. It can be worked through quickly, so it really should be read beforehand …” Moondog

Where can you get the book?.

Bookshops

The quickest way is to order it from Amazon or from the publisher’s online shop. (We would be glad if you ordered directly from the publisher, since that earns both this mid-sized publishing house and Winfried Berner as the author a considerably higher return.) But of course you can get the book just as easily from a bookshop or another online retailer.