Organisational Reviews & the Impetus to Change

Audits and reviews, compel organisations to look internally and examine the areas that are in normal day to day life all too easy to ignore.

In the month that marks International Women’s Day, it’s been depressing to hear accounts of women struggling in cultures where they experience undermining, sabotage, sexism and varying degrees of damaging toxic behaviours. Unchallenged such behaviours become deep rooted and accepted as the cultural norm – until some type of review shines a spotlight. The irony of organisations that have a purported commitment to fairness, representation and equity having problematic cultures is not new.

Now as politicians, the Metropolitan Police, policy makers and other stakeholders look at the findings of the Casey report, it seems the toxic culture that was outlined in the Macpherson report over 20 years ago has become embedded and ‘institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia’ are found to be major problems. Such findings against a backdrop of historic revelations and reports about behaviours and systems undermine the stated commitments to a fairness, representation, and a service working to the highest possible standards. This must be extremely problematic to those in the service that are committed and working to the values we all expect. To those that have first-hand experience of these issues it must be painful and yet a vindication of their experience. To the leaders this should be a wake-up call.

Major organisational reviews are so vital to highlighting problems that it’s a shame they are not carried out regularly as a way of auditing and correcting organisational failings before they become catastrophic. But because reviews and their findings can highlight unpleasant realities that leaders may have turned a blind eye to, or minimised because of the required effort to change, they’re rarely carried out unless there is some external impetus. The worst response to review findings is to try and dismiss the findings. Unfortunately, if the preponderance of evidence highlights that there are embedded problems, denying that this is the case doesn’t make the problems go away. Tackling the issues head on is the only appropriate response.

For sustainable change to occur, there needs to be 5 key steps :

1. Accountable leadership

Facing up to the nature of the challenge and seeing leadership as responsible and capable of leading the change.

2. Committing to systemic change

Being vocal about the change needed and not just tinkering around the edges or discussing superficial issues that do not address the reality.

3. Prioritising the change programme

With deep rooted failures, that impact morale, reputation and service delivery, there needs to be a corresponding sense of urgency. An appreciation of the urgency, scope and impact of the problems is essential.

4. Action Taking

Radical big bold steps show seriousness and create the impetus to lasting change.

Teams, individuals, processes, communications, policies everything is up for grabs when it comes to reversing toxic cultures and institutional failings.

5. Long term focus with an eye on the short term

Sometimes the automatic response to a hard-hitting review is to focus so much on being reactive that the long-term strategic planning is overlooked. It’s possible to commit to long term systemic changes whilst taking critical immediate steps.

In an ideal world organisation would be conducting regular reviews. If reviews are thorough and reflect areas that need urgent attention, it encourages, self-reflection, organisational improvements and a culture of continuous learning.