Do you ever read your staff survey results and think: I haven’t a clue what is really going on here?
Hidden dynamics and unspoken things are usually the key drivers of organisational culture. Generalised culture surveys often don’t really help us to understand where the leadership effort should go.
Our engagement results in employee surveys are better than the country benchmark!
So why are we not delivering on business targets then?
To work out what needs to be done, our consultants invite members of organisations to explore their own organisational culture. This can be a profound experience individually and collectively, which contributes to the growth of leaders, the cohesion of leadership teams, working groups and the effectiveness of activity plans agreed.
How we can help
We can help you to collect and unpack the essential data describing your organisational culture, find a framework to explore it and support you through the process.
To be effective, the exploration process must be done collectively in the organisation. We can help you select various groups of employees: typically we would want to include different levels of managers and employees from different units and functions.
This is not about us teaching you – rather we will journey with you, being curious and learning together in a safe but also challenging space.
Why embark on this journey into your organisational culture?
Reveal the hidden
The culture exploration process helps to identify hidden features, phenomena and dynamics: all the factors that help or hinder efficiency, collaboration. Identified and agreed-upon cultural challenges can enable explorers to agree on actions and interventions where things need to be changed.
Read the cultural signs
This process develops competence amongst leaders and colleagues to observe and “read” the culture. This is a crucial competence for leaders, so that they can lead efficiently; and for all team members, so that they can collaborate, take up their professional roles and achieve their goals.
How are you?
Fine!
Do you have any feedback?
... uhnnn ...
Work with a safe space
The reflective practice associated with this process creates a safe space to voice what is “unspoken”, notice what is well “hidden” in organisations. These are often the most powerful forces hindering collaboration and goal achievement within organisations.
Connect with team dynamics
Operating in teams throughout the exploration of culture usually contributes to improved relationships among group members. The culture exploration process provides common team goals and enables the group to work with emerging team dynamics.
How we work
1. Your goals and challenges will shape the design of the exploration process;
2. We devise a series of different events, which usually include workshops to introduce participants to the main concepts and principles we will use, sometimes in separate groups;
3. Participants will be supported through three stages: data collection, reviewing and making sense;
4. After the exploration phase, depending on the overall agreed goal and outcome, the organisation is supported to build an action plan and design interventions to achieve change.
Is this for you?
We usually work with senior leaders and managers, teams (varying units and functions) and mixed groups (people in different units and at different levels).
The people who want to work with us are usually interested in these questions:
What cultural factors will support or hinder our strategic, business goal achievements and efficiencies?
Can we explore our culture and look under the surface?
We are experiencing transformations, changes and challenges and we need to know how to employ cultural factors to ensure success?
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Top image: Iva on Flickr