The Community Maturity Model’s™ Culture competency pertains to various aspects of your organization or community’s habits, motivators (intrinsic and extrinsic), social norms, communication, decision-making processes, development processes, and learning approaches. By recognizing and anticipating cultural obstacles and embracing change, organizations can effectively manage risks and successfully establish their community program
This is almost always easier said that done. Like many individuals, organizations and even single communities are hesitant to change – even when it is clearly in their best interest. The three suggestions below are research-backed ideas to help you begin to (slowly) shift the culture in your organization to be more productive, transparent, and community-focused.
Three Ways to Improve Your Community’s Culture
1. Ride the wave. Acknowledge the idiosyncrasies of your corporate culture and lean into those aspects that will help community approaches be successful. Not all cultures are all-in on community, but by focusing on the aspects that are supportive you’re more likely to achieve success.
2. Build consensus with small wins. When you identify people that are embracing new approaches, encourage them to help you share throughout the organization and/or with other people in the community. Ask them to focus on recognizing small changes that are moving behaviors in the right direction. As the Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
3. Blow your horn! It’s not enough to grow a successful community initiative by staying within a division or group. Get out there, talking about how the community is supporting other business units with their goals. Identify community cheerleaders (and skeptics) across the organization and answer their questions to bring them along for the ride.
Don’t be discouraged if traction for this ideas takes longer than you’d like. Culture is a such an ingrained part of a community, even small changes should be considered big wins!
Download the State of Community Management 2023 to learn more about how you can leverage communities as effective behavior change-makers at your orgs.
