Tips For HR Leaders Seeking To Influence Organizational Change.

Have you ever brought a brilliant idea to leadership, only to hear, "That's not a priority right now," or "We don't have the budget"? It can be frustrating, especially when you know the change is critical for your team or the business. This is a common challenge, but it doesn't have to be the end of the road.

A recent webinar hosted by Christina Martinez de Andino, CEO of CMD Consulting, and Dorian Cunion, an executive coach and consultant at Your Path Coaching and Consulting, offered practical strategies for HR and business leaders to influence change and secure buy-in. Here's a look at the key takeaways from their discussion.

Shift Your Mindset: From HR Leader to Strategic Partner

The first step to influencing change is to change how you are perceived. Traditionally, HR is often seen as a service or operations function—handling payroll and benefits. But to drive meaningful change, you need to be viewed as a strategic business partner.

What does this mean? It means understanding the company's goals and challenges and linking your initiatives directly to business outcomes. It's about speaking the language of operations, finance, and strategy, and bringing practical solutions to the table, not just problems.

A successful example shared in the webinar involved a Fortune 500 bank where a fragmented talent development process was causing frustration for managers and employees. By acting as a strategic partner, a consultant was able to help the HR leadership team:

• Gather data: They conducted research and focus groups to understand the business's specific needs.

• Co-create solutions: Instead of dictating a new process, they collaborated with representatives from various departments to design a unified framework.

• Build momentum: They piloted the new solution in a few business lines to gain early wins and prove the concept before rolling it out company-wide.

The result? A unified, company-wide framework that improved employee trust and confidence, while also increasing HR's credibility.

Become the Expert and Build Your Business Case

To be an effective influencer, you must first be seen as an expert. This means not only mastering your own domain—like knowing HR laws and best practices—but also deeply understanding the business.

Dorian Cunion, drawing on his experience as a business owner and former Retail Executive, highlighted the importance of understanding how profits are generated within your organization. When you can connect your initiatives to profitability and business goals, leaders with P&L responsibility are more likely to listen.

Once you have established your expertise, you can build a compelling business case. This isn't just a proposal; it's a tool to help decision-makers understand the real problem, weigh the risks of inaction, and see a clear path forward. A strong business case should include:

• Executive Summary: A quick, 30-second overview of the problem and why it matters.

• Problem Statement: A clear articulation of what's happening and how it aligns with company goals.

• Options & Recommendations: Presenting viable solutions with pros and cons, along with your recommended path and a rationale for why it's the best choice.

• Cost vs. Impact: A direct comparison of the investment needed versus the risks of doing nothing.

Map Your Stakeholders and Build a Coalition

Even the best business case can fall flat without a strong strategy for gaining support. You need to identify your stakeholders—the key players, decision-makers, and influencers—and understand their motivations.

The speakers shared several tools for this, including a power-interest grid to categorize stakeholders by their level of influence and interest. You can also use "warm, lukewarm, or cold" ratings to gauge their support and tailor your approach.

The goal is to build a coalition of internal champions who will reinforce your message. This can include finding an executive sponsor or a key influencer who trusts you and can advocate for your idea among their peers. Starting with one-on-one conversations over coffee before a big meeting is a simple, effective way to get early feedback and build buy-in.

Use the Right Tools and Resources

Finally, your communication strategy is crucial. Think of influencing change like a marketing campaign. You need to nurture relationships, educate your audience, and then make a compelling case. Consider the following:

• Diverse tools: Use a variety of tools, like presentations, one-pagers, or videos, to appeal to different communication styles.

• Hard facts and data: Support your case with data, research on what peers are doing, and insights from industry publications.

• Leverage other stakeholders: Gather feedback from customers, vendors, or even competitors to build a more robust case.

By adopting these strategies, you can position yourself as a powerful catalyst for change within your organization.

Want to learn more? The full video covers these topics in much greater detail, including practical examples, templates, and Q&A from the live audience. Watch the full webinar on YouTube to dive deeper into how you can become a more effective influencer and strategic partner.

How Much Influence Should HR Leaders Have on Company Culture?

Organizational culture is more than just a "nice-to-have"; it's the solid foundation upon which lasting success is built. This hidden force shapes how people interact, how decisions are made, and ultimately, how well a company performs. A well-aligned culture directly boosts employee involvement, sparks new ideas, and ensures everything aligns with the company's main goals. A strong culture is genuinely essential for success, as it profoundly influences how well leaders perform, how committed employees are, how satisfied customers are, and the company's ability to innovate. This series of articles is designed to provide HR leaders with the in-depth understanding and practical steps necessary to shape their organization's culture actively, transforming it from a vague idea into a powerful, tangible business asset.

HR Leaders' Role in Defining Culture

To truly influence culture, we must first understand its complex nature. Organizational culture is best viewed as having different layers, and Edgar Schein's model provides a valuable way to explore this concept. This model breaks down culture into three distinct, yet closely connected, levels:

• Artifacts: These are the most obvious and observable parts of a culture. Think about the office layout, the unspoken dress code, how people usually communicate, and daily habits. These are "what we do"—the visible signs of the culture's deeper workings.

• Espoused Values: Going a bit deeper, espoused values are the officially stated beliefs, philosophies, and goals that an organization publicly supports. These represent "what we say we believe"—the principles the company says are important.

• Basic Underlying Assumptions: At the deepest level are the basic underlying assumptions. These are the unspoken, deeply rooted beliefs and feelings that unconsciously guide behavior. They are the "why we do what we do," often operating without us even realizing it, and they are very hard to change.

Understanding these layers is crucial because organizational culture profoundly influences how employees interact, make decisions, and approach their work, affecting everything from the company's core mission to its daily operations. Cultural patterns can persist for a long time, even after leaders change, often revealing how deeply these basic, underlying assumptions are rooted. For example, a company once led by a very controlling CEO might still have a culture where people avoid risks or push decisions up the chain for over a decade, even under a more friendly leader. This happens because the hidden belief that "it's safer to let others make the tough calls" remains unchallenged.

The Cost of Doing Nothing

High Turnover

Ignoring your organization's culture, or allowing it to become unhealthy or toxic, comes with serious and measurable business consequences. A toxic company culture is a strong indicator that bad outcomes are likely to occur within the organization. For example, a toxic culture is ten times more likely to cause employees to leave than low pay. A shocking one in five employees reportedly leaves a job specifically because of its culture. The financial burden of replacing just one employee can be huge, often costing a company up to twice that employee's annual salary. This direct link to keeping talent shows the immediate and clear financial drain of an unhealthy culture.

Increased Recruiting, Hiring & Training Expenses

Beyond these direct costs, a toxic culture severely damages a company's reputation as an employer. 73% of job seekers say they will only apply to a company if its culture matches their personal values. This proves that a healthy culture isn't just an internal issue; it's a vital factor in competing for talent.

Less Productive Workforce

Furthermore, employees becoming disengaged and less productive are direct results. Highly disengaged employees are nearly 20% less productive, and disrespectful behavior at work results in a noticeable decline in effort and time spent by those affected. This decrease in productivity directly impacts a company's efficiency and overall output. The negative effects also lead to higher healthcare costs, as toxic workplaces are linked to increased healthcare spending, and employees who feel treated unfairly are statistically more likely to suffer from serious diseases.

Risk of Unethical Behavior

Finally, the risk of harm to a company's reputation and legal problems greatly increases. A compelling 85% of CEOs and CFOs believe that a toxic company culture can lead to unethical or illegal behavior, and there's a clear link between low company integrity and reduced financial value. This highlights that cultural honesty is not just an ethical concern, but a crucial part of maintaining financial stability and adhering to rules.

Unrealized Potential

A key point for HR leaders to understand is that cultural issues, if ignored or allowed to become harmful, can quietly weaken even the best-planned company strategies. For example, a strategic shift toward innovation, while good on paper, will fail if the current culture is marked by fear of failure or a "cutthroat" environment. People will naturally hesitate to share new, potentially risky ideas. Similarly, growth strategies are naturally hindered by high employee turnover and a reduced ability to attract top talent. This demonstrates that cultural alignment isn't just a secondary consideration; it's a fundamental requirement for successfully implementing strategy. Without a supportive culture, other strategic efforts are built on shaky ground, thereby reducing the company's ability to achieve its primary goals and remain competitive.

Table: The Real Costs of a Toxic Culture

Cost Category	Impact of Toxic Culture [6]
Employee Attrition	10x more predictive of attrition than compensation; 1 in 5 employees leave due to culture; Replacement cost up to 2x annual salary.
Poor Employer Brand	Strongest predictor of negative Glassdoor reviews; 73% of job seekers apply only if culture aligns with values.
Employee Disengagement & Reduced Productivity	Highly disengaged employees are ~20% less productive; Incivility leads to decreased effort.
Higher Healthcare Costs	Incremental costs ($16B in US in 2008); Employees perceiving unfairness 35-55% more likely to suffer major disease.
Reputational Damage & Legal Liability	85% of CEOs/CFOs believe toxic culture leads to unethical/illegal behavior; Low integrity associated with lower financial value.

HR's Changing Role: Moving from Office Tasks to Strategic Leadership in Cultural Transformation

While changing culture is truly a team effort that can't be handled by HR alone, HR's role remains incredibly important. HR professionals now have a unique, "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to become strategic enablers, especially as organizations deal with big changes like the rise of artificial intelligence.

Updated Skills

This changing world means HR needs to update its skills. Key abilities for HR leaders in this new environment include a deeper understanding of data, strong change management skills, and a high level of adaptability. This means HR must completely rethink old ways of managing talent, moving beyond just hiring for roles to using skills-based approaches that fit new priorities, and actively creating a work culture that can naturally adapt to constant change.

Be the Bridge

HR's special position as the "bridge" between top leadership's big goals and employees' practical needs makes it central to determining the best way to change culture and ensuring it happens. For HR to truly impact this change, it must have a strong voice in decision-making, skillfully balancing leadership's mission with the real experiences and abilities of the workforce.

Bringing It All Together

A crucial point for HR leaders to understand is that while HR's expertise is vital for cultural change, the ultimate responsibility for cultural outcomes must go beyond just the HR department. HR professionals have a deep understanding of change processes and cultural dynamics, making them ideal helpers and guides for such efforts. However, culture is a living thing, shaped daily by the actions and decisions of everyone, especially business unit leaders who turn strategy into daily operations.

If these leaders don't fully accept and implement the desired cultural shifts in their daily work, the effort risks becoming a superficial HR task that won't truly take hold or last. This highlights that HR's real strategic value lies in empowering and helping other leaders, providing the necessary methods and support, rather than trying to "fix" the culture all by itself. This means HR needs to develop advanced skills in influencing others, building strong partnerships, and effectively delegating, changing its image from a support role to an essential strategic partner.

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Are you an HR professional who is looking to gain more influence within your organization? Email Dorian Cunion at dcunion@yourpathexecutiveolutions.com to initiate a conversation about building your skills and strategy, enabling you and your organization to reach its full potential.

Your Path to Business Success #14: Improving Performance by Creating Psychological Safety

Do you find yourself working harder to manage your employees than you feel you should? Low trust negatively impacts organizational performance in two ways. First, it creates a situation where your employees are scared to make mistakes. Secondly, it can produce situations where employees hide errors and information to protect their status. Both waste valuable time, money, and resources that should be put towards solving customer issues or improving business efficiency. One of the best ways to make work more manageable is to reduce the inefficiency that low trust creates in your organization.

Why Psychological Safety Matters.

I recently worked with a small business owner who grew frustrated with his team due to how they responded to his leadership. He felt their slow response to direction and lack of engagement negatively impacted sales. He sought coaching to understand better how his current behaviors were getting in the way of driving results. Through coaching, we discovered that low trust was the primary issue. The solution? Creating more psychological safety within his organization.

4 SIgns of Low Trust

Sign 1 of Low Trust: Unasked Questions

I helped the business owner see that some new employees felt uncomfortable coming to him for guidance. During meetings, he would set expectations for the week. He thought they understood his expectations, but there frequently were gaps between what he said and what they understood regarding key tasks. For him to improve team performance, the employees had to become comfortable asking clarifying questions and proactively asking for help when needed.

Sign 2 of Low Trust: Lack of Collaboration

Low trust between employees made the situation even worse. Competition for status, advancement opportunities, raises, and bonuses created an environment where employees did not share tips and best practices outside group meetings. This meant that most communication and talent development fell on the business owner, which slowed down employee development and created incremental stress for the business owner.  For employees to develop faster, he needed tenured employees to help newer employees learn new skills and how work is done within their organization.

Sign 3 of Low Trust: Lack of Feedback

Through coaching, he also identified that employees hesitated to point out business improvement opportunities. When he started hiring staff, he envisioned them helping him develop new ideas for growing the business, reducing costs, and improving efficiency. While all his employees had opinions about how things could be improved, it was rare for employees to suggest ways to improve. This stagnated organizational growth because the owner did not have time to ponder and evaluate potential changes. Instead, he spent too much time following up with employees who were not executing tasks to his expectations.

Sign 4 of Low Trust: Feelings of being Unvalued

Finally, we identified that some of the employees felt undervalued. They were unhappy about certain aspects of the job but did not feel comfortable voicing those concerns. The business owner only heard complaints when employees were under a lot of pressure and would overreact with emotional outbursts. This typically made the business owner furious at the employees because of their poor communication and failure to emotionally regulate themselves.  

How Did We Improve Trust?

We teach business owners the Power6 Leader framework's success equation: process multiplied by culture equals results to help them improve trust within their teams.

Processes help employees and bosses manage the complexities of work by reducing the number of decisions that must be made before action is taken. For example, if a status meeting is held every Monday, employees know that at least once a week, they will have an opportunity to discuss what is and is not working well within the business.

Organizational culture is essential because everything cannot be managed through processes. When novel situations occur, having norms, guiding principles, and values helps guide decision-making. For example, if a norm within your company is to challenge the status quo, then employees know that it is safe to question why a task is being done a certain way and suggest alternative ways of completing a task.  

Make Meeting More Meaningful

Few things are complained about more than meetings. They can take up a lot of time. They pull people away from doing other work, and most leaders never go through effective meeting training. Within the Power6 Leader coaching program, we challenge business owners to evaluate:

·       How frequently are meetings held?

·       How to generate more engagement?

·       How to gain feedback to keep them fresh and valuable?

There are four types of meetings we encourage all business owners to have.

1. One-on-One Meetings: designed to build relationships, provide opportunities for support, and ensure employees are getting the direct feedback they need to perform.

2. Group Meetings: designed to build relationships between team members, facilitate cross-pollination of ideas, and ensure that group members are focused on shared goals and understand interdependencies.

3. Business Reviews Meetings: These meetings are designed to ensure key stakeholders are aware of key performance indicators and variances to goals and to develop plans to close performance gaps.

4. Quarterly Strategy Reviews: designed to get key stakeholders to pause, consider current priorities, and evaluate whether they align with long-term organizational mission and vision.

We discussed these types of meetings, who should be invited, what the agenda should be, and how to ensure that they help to support trust. Every business is different, and you need to customize the approach that will work for you and your current stage of business growth.

Reinforce Organizational Cultural Expectations

After optimizing the meeting cadence, we focused on defining the norms, guiding principles, and values employees should use when making decisions. We discussed how each meeting should reinforce the organizational culture the business owner desired to build. Through consistent discussion of organizational culture, the seeds of values, norms, and guiding principles take root.

What was the outcome?

At first, the employees were skeptical. They thought the business owner was going through a phase and things would revert to normal. After 6 weeks of the business owner focusing on improving processes and organizational culture, the employees started to accept that this was the new way they would be doing business. They became more engaged and trusted the business owner and their peers more. The business owner noticed employees asking more questions, collaborating, and providing suggestions for improving the company; many communicated that they were starting to feel like valued team members.

What you should do next?

Consider the four signs of low trust. Identify if you see any of these signs within your organization. If they are present, develop a specific plan for addressing the issue. Start first by looking at your meetings. How can they be improved? Make minor tweaks and ask your team about the impact of your changes. Next, reflect on how you want your team to treat one another, customers, and other stakeholders. Make your expectations known, and consistently find ways to help your team understand how things are done here.

Thank you for reading the latest version of Your Path to Business Success. Over the last 14 weeks, we have shared tips and best practices that small business owners can use to make 2025 their best year yet. If you have any questions about this or any other business topic, email Executive Coach Dorian Cunion at dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

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