Author: codebru

This is an excerpt from our Constructive Culture blog post, “Change Agents and their Role in Transforming Culture,” by Kalani Iwiula. Click here to read the full post.

Challenge

Members and leaders of Wisconsin-based Johnsonville Sausage have a bold vision to “be the best company on earth.” This requires that the leading national sausage brand be culturally prepared and poised for aggressive innovation on its way to growing and becoming a $1 billion company. An important step was determining whether the company’s Research and Development subculture would foster innovation and growth while supporting their desired culture famously cultivated in the “Johnsonville Way.”

Solution

Susan Dumke, Johnsonville’s Research & Development Senior Project Manager, partnered with the University of Wisconsin-Madison CPED to coordinate a pilot culture study led by Lisa Yaffe, Program Director for Executive Leadership.

Accredited in the OCI, change agent Yaffe guided the Johnsonville team through the assessment and reporting process.¹

Outcomes

A pilot study confirmed that the R&D employees maintained a strong Constructive subculture that helped the team stay aligned, focused, and to work together and grow. The process also confirmed that the OCI could be leveraged for assessing and developing the Johnsonville culture more broadly.

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This is an excerpt from our Constructive Culture blog post, “Change Agents and their Role in Transforming Culture,” by Kalani Iwiula. Click here to read the full post.

Challenge

As the largest health system in Illinois, Advocate’s challenge was to increase and stabilize engagement, focus on culture change, and strengthen relations within a high-profile, semi-autonomous unit that struggled with negative team dynamics, unproductive work relations, and entrenched passive-aggressive behavior.

*Advocate Health Care is now Advocate Aurora Health, April 2018

Solution

Focusing more on culture than climate, emphasis was placed on helping leaders and teams make the connection between outcomes and their actions and behaviors. Simultaneous “teach & learns” were delivered at all organizational levels with a keen focus on achieving ideal behavioral styles and impact.

The change initiative was guided by an OD professional specializing in culture transformation and leadership development. Change agent Diane Stuart’s 10 years of healthcare management experience qualified her to lead Advocate’s change effort through an intense and collaborative learning process using assessments like the OCI and Leadership/Impact^® (L/I).^{1, 3}

Outcomes

As leaders gained awareness of their behaviors and their impact on others, Advocate achieved a dramatic shift in culture, attained high levels of engagement, and exceeded financial goals. The impressive turnaround results realized by the focal unit have subsequently been used to motivate, guide, and transform other Advocate teams and departments.

Summary PDF

Video

This is an excerpt from our Constructive Culture blog post, “Change Agents and their Role in Transforming Culture,” by Kalani Iwiula. Click here to read the full post.

Challenge

Dallas, Texas-based architectural firm HKS Architects creates places that enhance the human experience, like the US Bank Stadium, home of the 2018 Super Bowl. After collecting employee satisfaction data for 10 consecutive years, leadership sought to better understand the current culture and the roadblocks that were inhibiting employees from taking the most successful actions.

Solution

A culture survey was initiated firm-wide using the Organisational Culture Inventory^® (OCI^®) from Human Synergistics.¹ Well-coordinated company-wide discussions, covering 20 offices across the globe, were conducted to review cultural attributes and the climates and prevailing behaviors of the various offices. Office leadership engaged staff in goal setting and planning. A new performance development system, ELEVATE, was implemented; not linked to compensation, the system involves managers meeting with team members three times each year. Change agent Cheryl Kitchner led ongoing discussions to facilitate participation and learning; vocal support from senior leadership is visible.

Outcomes

HKS reassessed its culture in 2016 using the OCI and added an assessment of the work climate with the complementary Organisational Effectiveness Inventory^® (OEI).² The retest, showing an impressive increase in survey participation, confirmed remarkable reductions in Passive/Defensive and Aggressive/Defensive styles and vital improvements along the Constructive styles. Key changes included stronger commitment to and focus on personal and professional development.

A second phase of improvement is ongoing and includes:

• Definition of a clear “FROM-TO” shift to consistently support the company-wide strategic priority, “Responsible Design.”
• Implementation of a creative and engaging leadership development program, Root Compass. “Responsible Leadership Workshop” was customized based on culture assessment results and launched for use with all managers. Goal: 100 people trained by end of 2018.
• Enhancement of the ELEVATE platform is further enhanced to include peer reviews for project teams and benchmarking by role.
• Roll-out of personal assessments to identify individual styles and strengths. Goal: 600 people trained by end of 2018.

Summary PDF

Video

Marti Wronski, General Counsel and SVP with the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, shares: “Successful transformation happens when the majority of people in the company have aligned beliefs and when proper leadership mindsets fuel consistent action.”

Angie Zeigler, Vice President of Talent Management at Oshkosh, on the importance of syncing leader and manager development with efforts to understand and evolve the overall culture.

To increase and stabilize engagement, a high-profile, semi-autonomous unit of Advocate Health Care chose to focus on organizational culture change, recognizing an opportunity and need to strengthen relationships within the unit as members worked to achieve their strategic goals. Using a combination of organizational and leadership assessments, as well as individual and team coaching and retreats, the unit achieved an impressive turnaround in its culture.

Click here to download the case study.

Mission-driven Pact is a nonprofit organization striving to eradicate poverty and strengthen local capacity in communities across the globe. Operating in 26 countries, Pact aims to give poor and marginalized individuals the tools and support they need to improve and take ownership of their futures. While Pact has always focused on empowering the people served, its own culture and the empowerment of employees took a back seat.

This case study was featured in the March-April 2014 issue of Nonprofit World, the publication of the Society for Nonprofits.

Click here to download the case study.

As the economy slowly makes its way back in recovery mode, and more employees are concerned with issues beyond job security, we are beginning to see a return to a focus on “employee engagement” as the critical overriding factor within organizations that drives performance. But is that really all there is to it? Should companies focus exclusively on employee engagement as the key indicator of success or failure within their organization? Is high employee engagement some sort of management panacea that cures all ills?

Click here to download the white paper.