Cultural change is a vital part of a holistic change management and has a fundamental impact on the organisational performance. In organisations, culture shapes the way people cooperate, manage, lead and perform. In consequence, cultural change is about doing things differently and not about communicating theoretical concepts, strategies and values. As we know, “we are what we do”.

We have introduced the Systemic Triangle of Culture as an instrument to observe one's own culture. Cultures tend to describe themselves in categories of values or practices. However, to fully understand cultural dynamics a third dimension was added into the Cultural Triangle: Institutions as the organisations' explicit and implicit set of rules. You can only understand culture, be it organisational or national, if you are aware of all three dimensions. This generates the necessary insight to change culture. For sustainable change you need to balance values, practices and institutions of a culture alike.