The Secret of Culture Change: How to Build Authentic Stories That Transform Your Organization

Find out how bold actions by visionary leaders can inspire powerful stories that drive culture change.

Data indicates that most strategic efforts to change a company’s culture fail. So how do companies succeed in this endeavor?

A top strategy professor and two highly successful CEOs found that, in companies that had successfully changed their culture, leaders had taken dramatic actions that embodied the new cultural values. These actions inspired stories that became company legends, repeated in every department and handed on to new employees.

Through compiling and analyzing 150 stories from business leaders who have achieved change, they identified 6 attributes that every successful culture change story has in common:
1.     The actions that build these stories are authentic
2.     These stories "star" the leader
3.     They signal a clean break with the past, and a clear path to the future
4.     They appeal to employee heads and hearts
5.     They’re often theatrical or dramatic
6.     They’re told, and re-told, throughout the organization

With extensive and inspiring examples of stories containing these attributes, the authors illustrate how readers can harness the power of stories within their company in order to change or create a winning culture to align with any strategy.

Jay B. Barney is one of the top three most cited scholars in the field of strategic management, who has published over 125 articles and book chapters, along with 7 books. He is a full-time professor at Eccles School of Management at the University of Utah.
Manoel Amorim is a serial CEO, whose most visible culture transformation project was celebrated in a Harvard Business School case (Telesp). He led 4 publicly traded companies and has been a Board Director several times in 6 different countries.
Carlos Julio has 9 books published in Latin America and Europe with over 300,000 copies sold since 2001. He is a visiting professor in four prestigious MBA Schools in Brazil. He hosts a daily short business radio program and a weekly business TV program.