Fast Cultural Change ― The Role and Influence of Middle Management

Organizational change is still an issue of high importance for organizations. However, many change initiatives still fail. These failures are often attributed to a lack of consideration of the existing organizational culture. In addition, organizations often seem to regard the work on organizational culture as something to be undertaken during times of well-being and as incentives to keep the engagement on a high level. Literature often states that cultural changes would need at least seven years and longer. The work on culture change, therefore, is often disregarded. However, this cannot be the solution and so organizations invest an important leverage for successful change. The role and influence of middle management on organizational culture change still seems to be unexplored. Fast Cultural Change explores ways to undertake cultural change within a shorter time span without losing sight of complexity and sustainability.

Martina Nieswandt is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Denkwerkstatt for Managers. She is a business consultant and coach, and lectures a Master's program in Project Management. Martina's work focuses on supporting cultural change processes in organizations, middle management roles and tasks, quantitative and qualitative management and employee surveys, team development and management training, and time management.