Targeted Advisory case study

Can a Culture Built on Care Also Deliver Results?

8culture styles on one map, from today to the aspiration
3pillars tested: purpose, care and results
5values put to 3 questions by the leaders who own them
9 of 10leaders answered the anonymous survey

The situation

The question behind the question.

Its leaders wanted results. Its culture had been built on care: caring, orderly, purposeful and safe, in the leadership team’s own words. The aim was 3 pillars, purpose, care and results, under 5 values already on the wall. What nobody knew was whether those values served the aim, shaped how work was done, and were lived by the leaders themselves. Staff had already noticed that an earlier promise to put values into practice had not been fully kept.

As it was asked

“Help us move our culture from aspiration to action.”

As we reframed it

Show how far the culture we want is from the one we have, test whether our values and our own behaviour support it, and build it into the systems that shape how people are led.

How we worked

How the work unfolded.

01

Map the shift

We started by placing both cultures on one map: a published model of 8 culture styles on 2 axes, how people work together, independently or interdependently, and how they respond to change. Every style the leaders saw today, caring, order, purpose and safety, sat on the interdependent side. Results sits on the other. The aspiration pulled the culture across the chart, the kind of shift that takes the most energy to hold. It was also a common one: most organisations the research studied combine results and caring.

02

Ask the leaders first

Then the leaders, anonymously. Each ranked 5 levers for every pillar, from structure and ways of working to shared values, skills and management, and said what blocked it and what would move it. Most put shared values first for every pillar, which is why the workshop started there. We coded every answer against 7 drivers that hold a culture in place: what leaders model, what is expected, what people can do, what is recognised and what has consequences, how work is done, how it is organised, and what is measured.

03

Hold up the mirror

Then a workshop, one pillar per group, with 3 questions for each value: is it still relevant, is it built into how we work, and do we, as leaders, role-model it? Purpose and care came back “somewhat”. Results came back “no” on both counts. The leaders were precise: most commitments were delivered, but objectives were not set or assessed, and nobody asked why when a project slipped. The leaders kept their 5 values, agreed that any change would follow a rigorous process, and put a sixth, personal accountability, on the table. Each leader left with a booklet and a one-page poster of the pillars.

04

Build it into the systems

Then from vision to action. Culture moves when the systems around people move, so the roadmap started by aligning the meaning of each value, then embedded the pillars in the leadership programme, the performance process and the learning offer: no new programme until the existing ones carried them. In performance, that meant clearer expectations and a move from output to impact. 14 HR initiatives were mapped against the drivers and pillars, and the next phase set up behavioural indicators for each pillar.

The instrument

3 questions for every value

Relevant? Does the value still serve the culture we want, or the one we had?

Operationalised? Is it built into how we set objectives, appraise, recognise and develop people?

Role-modelled? Would our people say that we, the leaders, live it?

A value that passes the first test and fails the other two is a slogan. Ask all three, and ask the leaders first.

What moved

What changed, and what didn't.

3core people processes now carry the pillars: leadership development, performance and learning
Evidence Decision taken Adopted in practice Measured impact
What moved

The pillars now live in 3 core people processes: the leadership programme, the performance process and the learning offer. Personal accountability took its place among the values, and the client defined behavioural indicators for each pillar, so results became something leaders are expected to show, not only to report.

What didn't move

The diagnostic heard the leaders, not the staff, although the leaders themselves named a gap between the two, and it read culture qualitatively, with no measured baseline to track change against. The leaders also asked for a faster pace than 6 months of working sessions, and the map of 14 initiatives was still incomplete when we handed over.

What we'd say to a peer

Before you ask staff to live new values, ask your leaders 3 questions about each one: is it still relevant, is it built into how we work, and do we role-model it? The hardest culture shifts cross the map. Name the crossing, and ask the leaders to go first.

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Method note:

Own approach in 4 steps; 8-style culture map (Groysberg et al., Harvard Business Review, 2018); anonymous leadership survey; 7-driver analysis; leadership workshop; value review; roadmap into people processes.

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