With the right tools and guidance, culture can transform—quickly.
I approach culture differently. I am not a consultant. I won’t be writing strategies. I don’t do surveys. I won’t be using buzzwords like initiative, action plan, or best practices. I don’t create rewards or incentives.
Instead, I jump right in.
Using tools from anthropology, I assimilate in the culture of your organisation or city to understand why people do what they do and say what they say.
It doesn’t matter if your organisation is a palace, a banking institution, a police department, or a city (all of which I’ve implemented cultural change). Your organisation is full of people, and people want to be empowered to contribute to a cause. When I advise an organisation, I help you pinpoint your company purpose, create moments of truth and create coherence behind your mission.
My work leads to increased collaboration, a stronger focus on customers, increased resilience, and more. And it’s all noticed by your teams very quickly.
Browse a few of my projects below:
Inspiring leadership among staff within an historic royal institution
Helping Mozambique miners overcome racial divides and enjoy working together
Adapting the judicial system of a country to protect independence
Successfully merging two police forces of 40,000 officers
Opening the minds of 100,000+ employees to alternative energy sources at Shell
Developing a culture of innovation at The Economist
Ensuring smooth assimilation from slums to assisted housing in Uruguay
Creating unity between opposing departments at SwissRe: within six months
I believe (and have learned) that all human beings are capable of change. While I'm not one for name-dropping, here are some clients that you might recognize.
McKinsey & Company
HSBC
GlaxoSmithKline
Goldman Sachs
The Economist
Nationwide
Macquarie
Accenture
Shell
Hewlett Packard
Do these statements
sound familiar?
“We’ll add company culture to the agenda of our next town hall meeting.”
My friend, if there’s anything I’ve learned from my cultural work over the past few decades, it’s this: Culture is not what we once thought it was. Culture is not an endless third-annual survey about engagement. It’s not the townhall that lectures about mission and values. Culture is not a conceptual framework that needs to be communicated for people to behave. Company culture doesn’t need to be discussed—it needs to be heard. Culture is what people talk about when you’re not watching. It’s the daily conversations that drive behaviors. Instead of adding company culture to the agenda, consider listening (truly listening) to the conversations that aren’t in meetings.
“Let’s get the strategy right before thinking about our culture.”
2020 proved that we can make plans and predictions, but we live in a vulnerable and unpredictable world. The pandemic has shown that buildings, strategies, and technology do not create a culture. Culture goes beyond these things.
In such an unpredictable world, it could be a waste to come up with a strategy first. You can have tactics, you can have a general direction, but you don't control strategy. You don’t control what’s going to happen in the world.
Instead, let’s implement a culture that allows you to adapt and play whichever business game you need to play, no matter the circumstances. The relationship between strategy and culture is informed by each other, but culture is the one that we have more control over. Culture, more than ever, comes first in this new world.
“We’re working on incentives to reward employees who align with our culture.”
This mindset is common, so don’t take this the wrong way: Organisations still believe that culture is something you can train and reward, but that's not how it works. Culture is not an initiative. Lecturing people with games and best practices and rewards, despite best efforts, doesn’t often change culture. The devil is in the details, but the details are not things that are publicized. The details are in reality.
You might be wondering: What does it take to move from talking to changing? To start, my team and I work very, very closely with executive teams to embed conversations into moments of truth. These moments connect beliefs, intentions, and promises into actions.