The new Cultural Web Model or Cultural Web Model is a powerful management and organization tool to analyze the strategic direction of your corporate culture: It can help you understand the attitudes and routines of your employees and how each element of your culture has a direct impact on the overall performance and success of the organization.

The cultural network approach is much more than a simple analytical exercise, as it involves breaking down the corporate culture so that the unique ins and outs of each organization can be fully understood. The information that is gathered can help rebuild an environment that supports employees to perform to the best of their abilities , and this will lead to improvements in company profits .

As a manager and people manager, it is important to understand what exactly this tool is and how it can help your business succeed. In this post, we break down everything you need to know.

It was developed in 1992 by Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes, and this theory involves analyzing the assumptions and practices established in the organization, so that an effective strategy can be built that aligns with each element of the model. This includes the stories, routines, symbols, structures, and processes that guide your organization.

In other words, it's about questioning the way things are done, breaking bad habits, and redesigning a corporate culture that drives productivity. With this strategy, you have to continually ask yourself these questions: What works? What is not working? How can we improve?

The reality of working in your organization

The power structures or chain of command that exist within your company

The way behaviors and routines are created and emerged

How the various elements of your company shape the employee and customer experience

The assumptions on which your corporate culture is based

Who you are as a company, who you want to be and how you can achieve it

How you can align your organizational elements with each other and with your overall business strategy

The corporate culture is based on the purpose, beliefs, habits, and behaviors of the employees of a company. It develops organically over time and is reflected in company dress code, business hours, office setup and structure, employee benefits, staff turnover, and hiring decisions.

It also has an impact on the way your employees interact with each other and with the outside world, and how business processes and operations are managed.

Big organizations with more than thousands of employees have a department for corporate culture, and many programs are organized by them, they keep a date calculator (howmanydaysbetween.com) with them, and organize many programs from time to time.  

The big difference between corporate culture and the Cultural Web Model, if we compare the two concepts, is that the latter is a strategy to improve the former. In other words, the Cultural Web Model is a process that aims to rethink corporate culture and polish it, since it can arise organically, as we have said.

The corporate culture of a company is like the glue that joins the pieces of an object, it is what unites the members, what they all share. Because companies are no longer that place where the worker spends his eight hours and resumes his life when he leaves; now it is the professional career, the benefits or flexible remuneration, its values, its challenges and motivations ...

Corporate culture can (and often does) be a very important element for the best professionals, and they will choose the company whose culture is most similar to their own and is more positive. And, of course, they can leave a company because of their bad corporate culture.

Did you know that corporate culture affects the corporate image of the company and this can affect its relationship with customers?

The corporate identity or image of the company is what it represents in the eyes of others, from the outside. This affects the perception of the brand that both potential candidates and customers have .

A bad corporate image, caused by a negative corporate culture, can not only cause high staff turnover or make it impossible to access the best talent, but it can cost you customers and, as a consequence, directly affect the profits and future of the organization.