Culture Development
The focus of our work, and our research, reflects the importance of culture. And we talk about culture development, not change, because we’re in it for the long haul.
The culture development model highlights the 3 key components for successful culture development. When any one of these areas are misfiring the results will be surface deep and a true collective movement will not be achieved.
Mindset – promoting the individual and (then) the collective way of seeing how the work they do matters;
Operating system – ensuring that functions and structures are shaped around the common purpose, not putting people in boxes;
Leadership – people-powered innovation insists that leadership is a distributed, empowering, driver of change. Not done to, but done with;
T.E.A.M. – 8 elements of culture. The ties that bind, the formative behaviours, the protocols, the rituals. It’s 2/3rds of everything you do
What to expect
We use a 3 step process to dig deep into your organisation to surface the barriers and opportunities to co-create the ideal workplace culture in your business.
No two organisations share the same DNA, People and Environment therefore no two solutions will be the same.
Discover:
Sharpening the issues
This is where our diagnostic tools capture:
- The challenges you’re facing
- How the culture of your organisation is affected by those challenges
By the end of the Discover phase, we’ll be able to identify pressure points, and the levers that need to be pulled to move towards a cultural development solution..
Depending upon the complexity of the challenges you’re facing, we may well complement online data gathering with an agreed programme of in-person interventions. Our aim throughout this phase is to avoid ‘solutionitis’ by identifying the root cause, not the symptoms.
Means to an end include:
- Online diagnostic tools (see Tools and Resources section)
- Interviews
- Improvement Science & Design Thinking workshops,
- Observations
- Focus groups
- Desk research
Develop:
Shaping the way forward
This phase takes the insights emerging from the Discover phase and only then looks at:
- The strategic vision
- The distribution of leadership
- External and internal constraints
To ensure that the solutions we co-create with you will stick (and you won’t be doing this all over in a year’s time) we’ll work with all stakeholders to resolve the big questions: what change is feasible? In what timeframe? How would functional/structural changes support or undermine the changes planned? How do we get buy-in? How will we know the changes have worked?
When specific operational functions become an issue, we have a wide range of associates, experts in their field, to draw upon for specialist input.
Means to an end include:
- Change Readiness Audit
- Learning Capability tool
- Mass ingenuity labs
- Team Coaching at all levels to improve feedback loops and share best practice
- T.E.A.M. Workshops around our 8 key elements of culture
Sustain:
Strengthening gains made
The initial high of a new programme is often followed by a drop in engagement and interest as the inevitable ‘business as usual‘ work gets in the way and excitement trails off.
When people solve problems themselves they own the solution. Hidden talents emerge. The organisation becomes strengths-based and people-powered. Organisations that build from strengths see a 36% improvement in performance. So, everything we do seeks to build ‘mass ingenuity’ across the whole organisation.
Means to an end include:
- Executive Coaching, Team Coaching and Peer/Reverse Mentoring
- Momentum sessions – quarterly get-togethers to surface issues, blockers, successes
- Pulse surveys – weekly check-ins on specific aspects of culture
- ‘Go and see’ in-person and virtual study tours to like-minded innovative organisations
- Building self-managed decision-making systems
- Book clubs, ‘Screw-up’ events, building ‘culture books’
- Re-running audits to identify progress