Building a better organisational culture (case study).

The following case study is based on a real leadership client so some of the details have been slightly altered and deliberately vague to preserve client confidentiality, including the client name and organisation.

We worked together 1:1 over 12 months through leadership coaching to support cultural transformation.

Where to start when transforming organisational culture?

The best place to start working together is defining what success looks like.

When we started, the goal seemed simple. Create a better culture.

Orla started in the role of General Manager at Ag Solutions 12 months prior to reaching out for leadership coaching. In that time, she’d observed organisational problems including:

·       Performance issues – including senior leaders, legacy staff and recently appointed staff

·       Fractured workflow between teams - which caused confusion, uncertainty, frustration and angry clients

·       Inefficiencies - resources were being mismanaged wasted

·       A chaotic, reactive culture - everyone was working in the weeds of operational challenges and unable to see beyond that chaos

Orla wanted to change work culture through leadership but didn’t know where or how to start a cultural transformation. She wanted to tackle these problems systematically and prioritised changing the chaotic culture but wasn’t sure where to start or what would make the biggest impact. Orla recognised she needed expertise in leadership, management and guidance for a whole of organisation change management process to take action. She had asked her network for recommendations and I was suggested.

Leadership Coaching 1:1

For a long-term goal like cultural transformation, the scope of work to see change is ideally between 12 and 18 months - depending on a range of factors. Ag Solutions had less than 50 employees so we agreed to starting with a 12 month plan. We contracted to work together primarily through monthly sessions with additional support between sessions to work through unexpected challenges that commonly arise for leaders.

Each session was scheduled for 60 minutes. This time offered a container for Orla to bring her greatest challenges, frustrations and over time a space to celebrate the wins. I intentionally schedule sessions with consistent frequency in the month, like the first Tuesday, and at specific times in the day to work in with the natural rhythm of the organisation. There are days and times that would increase the likelihood of cancelling sessions. Conversely, there are times that are ideal to get the most out of the session. Avoiding competing deadlines or setting sessions to happen prior to significant meetings offers leaders a chance to think and act more strategically.

In the same intention way that sessions are scheduled, the timing between sessions is optimised for leaders to have enough time and headspace to work through potential solutions. Time is also important to work through the emotional rollercoaster that comes with leadership. In my honest opinion, leaders need consistent, unbiased emotional support to stay the course and quite often the emotional support provided within an organisation is not enough. And in this instance, Orla’s goal to make a significant transformation of culture has a huge emotional burden attached that is often overlooked and can really make or break the changes needed to achieve this goal.

Providing a leader the psychologically safety to speak honestly, without fear of punishment or consequence, is a critical part of leadership development and is an element of my leadership consultancy practice I place greater importance on. In some organisations, there is a lack of psychological safety which means admitting uncertainty can be detrimental. And it is not enough to simply declare an organisation is psychologically safe. Employees need to verity this to be true. Leaders will be unable to develop leadership capabilities without psychological safety. A role like a general manager carries a tremendous responsibility to have all the answers so, for example, to seek counsel from a leader in the executive team about how to have a performance conversation with another leader in the executive team is problematic, to say the least.

An Insight into Leadership Coaching Sessions

How we used the time in each session was ultimately up to Orla. Every session had its own focus, and the agenda was set by Orla.

At the start of the session I would ask “what would you like to get from our time together?” At times, Orla was overwhelmed and unable to start the session with a clear focus. And that’s completely normal. Part of the challenge for many leaders is the reactive nature of their work, and for Orla working in a reactive culture was the very problem she wanted to fix so naturally she would fall into this pattern of behaviour too. It is near impossible to resist the pull of a workplace culture - whether it is positive or negative.

It takes only a few minutes to help leaders work out exactly what they want to get from the session. Together, we use the first few minutes of the session to figure out what was most important and what Orla needed from me. And the most important thing isn’t always the biggest frustration - though there is time for that too. More importantly, the sessions were an opportunity to unpack the month that was, prioritise problems, explore potential solutions and determine clear next steps. Leadership coaching is a chance to have a conversation you wouldn’t usually have. These are unique interactions designed to bring clarity to an otherwise confusing or problematic issue.

By the conclusion of each session, Orla would leave feeling supported, clear about next steps and buoyed with confidence about exactly how to approach the most complex of situations.

The challenge for many leaders is they are the end of the line in escalating problems. Most problems make their way up the chain of reporting and eventually the chain stops with someone. And when issues go unmanaged, leaders in a role like a General Manager becomes the last stop.

Addressing Problems

We started by first addressing performance issues. There was a list of employees being actively performance managed. We worked through the status of current performance management plans and mapped out next steps - including the impact on culture. In some instances, there was a long history of poor performance which had largely been unmanaged for many years.

Performance management is a common challenge for leaders. Not many leaders find it a rewarding experience, but it is a foundational leadership skill. It brings up lots of fears and emotions for everyone involved which is underpinned by the uncertainty of knowing what will happen once you talk to someone about their performance when its lacking.

But simply put, there are 2 common outcomes.

1.     The person’s performance improves with support.

2.     They leave.

Over the next 12 months, 14 employees chose option 2.

There are two key points to be made here. Firstly, the impact of widespread poor performance like this can and does have a profound impact on an organisation’s culture. Even 1 example of poor performance can have a huge impact. Secondly, there are a bunch of leadership and management skills needed to navigate poor performance, and in this instance the added constant stream of resignations placed Orla under considerable pressure. Working on these skills privately in 1:1 leadership coaching allowed Orla to not only fill skill gaps – it also allowed her to candidly express the many emotions that come to the surface, which is a far better and healthy response, rather than avoiding or misdirecting big emotions.

The next issues to be addressed was leading Ag Solutions through continuous significant changes in people. When legacy staff resign from an organisation, the impact can be felt on multiple levels. When people don’t know the full story, they invent one (#ifyouknowyouknow). Narrative voids are filled with speculation, accusation and very rarely balanced perspective.

So, as we worked through these big staff changes, we worked on improving the quality of communication across the business. We used coaching and check in sessions to:

·       Map out key messaging for internal communications

·       Develop scripts for hard conversation (getting the exact wording is one of the biggest barriers)

·       Identify all the opportunities to communicate and reinforce key messages

A third example of our work together was creating cohesive leadership practices across the organisation. We examined gaps in efficiencies and isolated which actions were needed to achieve the primary goal: a better culture. Meetings were redesigned to have a greater impact on addressing workflow. New meetings were introduced to foster collaboration between the executive team. Hard conversations were had across the organisation to take active steps towards being more strategic and less reactive. Social club activities were ramped up and employees valued the opportunity to not socialise together outside of work hours.

The Impact from Leadership Coaching

Transforming a workplace culture takes grit, perseverance and time. More time than you feel is available. But the irony is how much time can be wasted making micro changes or focusing on the wrong issues rather than tackling the big ones.

And one of the biggest issues undermining the culture at Ag Solutions was conduct. There was a prevailing culture of defiance without consequence. The issue was most evident with legacy staff. People who’d worked at Ag Solutions for more than 10 years and had seen many managers come and go. Some staff had been challenged about their behaviour, but largely nothing transpired. So, each time an incident was half addressed but not completely managed, there was a sense that people could do whatever they wanted without consequnece. In isolation, that is problematic but when that pattern is repeated across a whole organisation it’s a chaos.

The most common contributor to situations like this is where people allow bad conduct from people who have technical knowledge or skills. But bad behaviour can’t be offset by technical knowledge and skills. Being capable or knowledgeable isn’t enough in isolation. Bad behaviour at work has far reaching impact and can take years to resolve - sometimes even long after the behaviour has stopped.

Humans calibrate their behaviour based on observation. When Dave observes Gavin being rude to a customer, it subtly suggests that behaviour is ok. When Gavin’s manager doesn’t address this behaviour, the behaviour becomes normalised. When Orla joined the business, she consistently watched staff defiantly refuse to do reasonable work tasks. Not only was there defiance, but this was also coupled with disrespectful communication and a flow on effect of people gossiping about each incident. The sequence of behaviours went unchecked. What starts as an individual problem quickly becomes an organisation wide problem. And all levels of these people problems need to be addressed.

Over 12 monthly sessions, we focused on:

·       Priority 1: leading culture transformation across the organisation

·       Priority 2: systematically managing performance and conduct issues (many were directly impacting cash flow)

·       Priority 3: improving internal management systems for efficiency (like designing new position descriptions, changing reporting lines, recruitment processes, workflows)

 I observed that Orla was able to demonstrate:

·       The discipline of consistency – like following up conversations to stay accountable

·       Breaking behaviour patterns of avoidance

·       Having difficult conversations (with many and often)

·       Mediating conflict

·       Role modelling desired behaviours

·       Clearly communicating expectations and changes

·       Tracking professional growth against KPIs and reporting

·       Accepting resignations as a sign of positive change – rather than holding on to people who want to leave or seeing the resignation as a reflection on her leadership capacity

All these developed skills underpin Orla’s leadership practices which were by design:

·       Grounded in her ideal leadership style

·       An efficient use of resources

·       Purposeful in meeting a specific need

·       Sustainable across the year – especially during busy periods

Across the year of working together, there were many indicators of organisational change. Resistance shifted and employees engaged with improvements. Newer staff voiced their ideas about better workflows and supported colleagues through the change. Orla’s focus shifted from putting out daily operational fires and started to plan strategically. At the conclusion of working together Orla shared:

 “I truly appreciate all your help this year. I wouldn’t have had the courage to make such bold and risky moves without your encouragement, so thank you again.”