In today's dynamic and ever-changing business environment the need to transform, reshape and restructure is a constant and no longer an option.

Business enterprises continuously need fresh ideas and newer ways of thinking that may set them apart from competitors and make them seem exclusive in the eyes of their consumers. As a result, it is no longer possible for any business executive to become too comfortable in their elevated position simply and only based on their years of loyalty to the organisation.

In the past, loyalty and length of service were major factors when determining whom to retain, whom to show the door and whom to promote. In other words, the loyalty and years of service are what created the notion of the "old guards", which are those executives who have a long history with the organisation and through those years, they have managed to accumulate substantial power and authority from an informal and social standpoint.

However, due to constantly needing new ideas and new ways of thinking to survive in today's marketplace, businesses also have to keep on bringing in new and fresh energy into their executive structure and through this, the "new guards" are created.

For most of my own highly diverse career, I have been viewed as the new guard because I was someone who was brought into the organisation to drive the change and infuse new ways of thinking.

Despite being very successful in terms of the numbers and results, my presence was not always welcome, especially to the old guards who had perhaps gotten a little too comfortable in their ways of doing things for decades. Thus, began the conflict between the old guard and the new guard.

Every large organisation in the world has a distinctive culture, which identifies and differentiates them from other organisations. We often get to hear: "It does not work here, or we do it differently." This basically implies that the people within an organisation feel that somehow, they are different from others and what they are doing is unique.

Edgar Schein, a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, defines organisational culture as "a pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way you perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems."

My favourite definition would be this one-liner by Deal and Kennedy: "The way things get done around here."

Suppose you join a new organisation at the top management level. You start by studying the hard numbers but don't get too bogged down. The most important aspect of the organisation that a leader must realise is the culture because the culture directly dictates how the organisation functions and it also defines its value structure.

An organisational leader must understand that true power is not always formal or officially designated because there is also the phenomenon of informal or social power, and often the latter could have more influence than the former.

The most powerful and more importantly, the most influential people in the organisation are not necessarily the ones at the top from an official perspective. People exercise unofficial powers and true influence through casual groups, grapevines, and personal relationships nurtured throughout all their corporate lives. The corporate world is, after all, a human world.

Once you understand the salient features of the prevailing culture, there is really no point ignoring, denying, or even fighting it. Replace the weak features with the best practices shared by other organisations and reward people accordingly. Once you establish the right culture, the business results will follow suit automatically with lesser efforts.

A while ago, Nasa had researched and found out something that still holds true: "The stereotypical take-charge 'flyboy' pilots, who acted immediately on their gut instincts, made the wrong decisions far more often than the more open, inclusive pilots who said to their crews, in effect, 'we've got a problem. How do you read it?' before choosing a course of action." The findings also suggested that "the pilots who'd made the right choices routinely had open exchanges with their crew members."

Such findings by Nasa shows that top-down organisational leadership/culture is a must-have these days, but it should also empower the management and incorporate the employees' perspective. The organisations that trusted and empowered their employees reaped those benefits in crucial times.

In 2009, when most companies with business in the US were trying to tackle the toll of recession, they had to go for mass lay-offs, be it gradual or one-time, raising the rate of unemployment drastically year-on-year. What amazed me was that Hewlett-Packard opted for a pay cut at all levels to save a portion of the employees from being laid off.

In Bangladesh, Standard Chartered acquired ANZ Grindlays bank in 2001. ANZ was the largest foreign bank, while Standard Chartered was possibly the smartest. Seniors, therefore, termed this as a "merger of equals" instead of acquisition. The CEO came from ANZ, while the client relationship heads, risk head, corporate affairs head, and chief financial officer came from Standard Chartered.

The first year was spent integrating the hearts of the people and the clients as well as ensuring regulatory compliance. Despite appearing to be similar, the two institutions were quite different in their core culture.

Citibank NA decided to give a chance to "change" with the goal of focusing more on revenue, branding, and keeping clients happy. A dream team was built up, under the direct sponsorship of the seniors in India, Hong Kong, and New York. Even though the existing people felt overridden, clients grew, revenue multiplied, and all stakeholders started to appreciate the visibility brought in through all the perceived right choices.

However, the disconnect in chemistry between the old guards and the new never went away. It was almost after 10 years that all the "change drivers" found themselves in orphanages, while most of the sponsors were gone due to the North American financial meltdown.

The hardliners got into the command controls and the outcome is up for anyone to guess: All the brand builders had left. Things had changed by 180 degrees. For good or bad, we don't know.  

A possible lesson from this experience could be that when trying to drive positive change in an organisation, there needs to be buy-in and acceptance from not only the formal and top management but also from the informal influencers within the organisation that might be in junior roles or part of middle management.

This is because the top management might be the ones dictating the strategy but if such goals are not accepted by all or most of the complex layers of influence within the organisation, there will be resistance and eventually, it may not be possible to bring about or sustain any sort of real and progressive change.

The author is an economic analyst.