The work of culture change is that of the organisation’s management and needs to be owned by them. Therefore, our approach is to work with and support people in those roles to undertake that work.

We do this using a particular theoretical framework called Systems leadership (SL) and firmly believe that the effective use of this set of modelling supports management doing this work of social process analysis and synthesis much more effectively. SL is a coherent, theoretically sound and practical framework focused on understanding and explaining people’s behaviours in organisations to create conditions where people can work to their potential while achieving the organisation’s purpose.

An essential part of this process will be the organisation having a shared frame of reference for this culture/social process work; SL provides that. It gives people a shared way of undertaking the analysis around culture and behavioural impact and assists clarity of thinking, discussion and decision-making in this area. The process recommended below assumes the utilisation of SL.

Having said this, there is not one way to do this work, nor one answer to the desired future culture of an organisation. Part of the work of the Executive is to attempt to predict what will be needed to be successful into the future (perhaps 5 to 10 years hence).

This work is complex and does not have a single path in our experience. Therefore, the initial piece of any project is to identify what the organisation is desiring to create within the boundaries of the future context. From there plans can be established to “close the gap” with activities drawn from a variety of options which are known to have been successful in prior situations.

We have been associated with and been part of the development of the SL body of work since the mid-1990’s. For more on SL and its underpinning theory please visit: https://www.maconsultancy.com/.