Why culture matters

While strategies provide direction, it’s culture that determines how effectively an organisation can achieve its goals.

Without the right culture, even the best strategies struggle. A strong, positive culture can attract talent, encourage innovation and drive performance.

What is organisational culture?

When should you look at culture

Whilst it’s key to monitor your culture year-round, key signs that it’s time for a culture change include:

Shifts in business strategy
Unplanned growth without a solid cultural foundation
High employee turnover
Poor performance
Outdated infrastructure

Our approach to cultural assessment

Using our Cultivate framework, we help you define both your current culture, including possible tensions and challenges that need to be resolved and the aspirational culture needed to support your strategic objectives.

This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach — it’s about identifying the combination of culture styles that will help your organisation thrive.

How to carry out a company culture assessment

Discover your company culture and what it means

Through our comprehensive assessment, we explore eight culture styles. Often, organisations struggle with trying to be too many things at once — creative yet risk-averse, inclusive yet competitive — which creates confusion and conflict.

By identifying your organisation’s dominant styles, we help you avoid this pitfall and create a clear cultural focus.

SHAPE your culture

Our SHAPE methodology helps you to identify areas of focus to make your desired culture a reality:

Stories: Changing mindsets through powerful narratives.

Hardwiring: Embedding new structures and processes.

Abilities: Aligning skills and capabilities with your cultural goals.

Processes: Integrating values into key HR practices such as recruitment and performance management.

Experience: Measuring and refining the impact of culture on employee engagement to ensure continuous progress. An excellent way to do this is through our employee surveys, which can be designed to specifically measure the impact of your culture.

How our consultants align your culture

Workshops: We facilitate interactive sessions with employees and managers to uncover current cultural patterns and aspirations.

Interviews: Semi-structured discussions with leadership teams help us understand cultural strengths and areas for improvement.

Context review: We analyse relevant materials such as your organisational strategy and employee survey data to gain a well-rounded understanding.

Leadership ambition workshop: We bring together leaders to discuss assessment findings and align on the future cultural direction.

Organisational values design: If your values need refreshing or an entire re-design, we can help you develop values, engaging staff in the process.