Phase 1: Align

This text of Chapter 3 is part of a modular system with concrete, pragmatically applicable tools for culture change. Culture change here refers to the so-called non-technical part of change processes, i.e. a sustainable change of behavior and attitudes of the people within an organization. This chapter describes the first of four phases of a systematically supported culture change, the alignment. In this chapter, practical tools for this phase are presented in an understandable way. It shows how a fact-based understanding of the direction of a change program can be achieved with the help of an action analysis. It also shows how stakeholders can be systematically classified, e.g. with the Stakeholder Prioritization Grid (SPG), and then how hypotheses about the desired changes to behavior and attitudes of individual target groups can be defined with so-called “From-To” pairs. Finally, it describes the process that the top team of the change goes through to stand behind the change with a common understanding and thus be able to drive the change forward as a team even during possible crises.