• ‘Unbossed Culture’ Takes Performance To New Heights

    Leaders now hold each other accountable. Their vulnerability has promoted inclusiveness, built trust and showed commitment to employees. Employees are engaged, their ideas are flowing and they’re taking ownership.

  • Create Constructive Cultures and Impact the World

    Over 30 years of research across thousands of organizations using the Organizational Culture Inventory® has shown positive relationships between Constructive cultural norms (that is, expectations for members to behave constructively in order to “fit in”) and motivation, engagement, teamwork, quality, external adaptability and, ultimately, profitability.

  • Leadership Glue Delivers Speed, Agility, & Aligned Action

    Hanes’ approach to developing their leaders is distinct in that their leaders are required to experience LSI three times before moving forward to the next level development program.

  • How Quantitative and Qualitative Results Lead to Real-Time Change

    The leaders at ERDMAN saw an opportunity for the senior leadership team to set the tone and expectations for the entire company and help drive needed business results. While never an overnight change, culture transformation is a vital part of an organization’s success when done correctly and ERDMAN has already begun to see the results…

  • Quantifying and Aligning Workplace Culture Post-Merger

    While it’s never an overnight change, culture transformation is a vital part of an organization’s success when done correctly. With 12 years of experience and the assessment tools that provided quantitative data showing where we are, where we want to go, and how we need to get there – Inclusa’s culture journey seemed attainable.

  • Johnsonville Sausage: Ensuring a Culture for Growth

    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…

  • Culture Shift + Leadership Development = Sustainable Results for Advocate Health Care

    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.

  • Culture Change at HKS: Resilient and Responsive

    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.

  • Ultimate Culture Webinar – What are your Blind Spots? with Jim Haudan and Rich Berens

    Root Inc Chairman, Jim Haudan, and CEO and Chief Client Fanatic, Rich Berens, reveal the five most common blind spots that thwart leaders and their organizations from attaining higher levels of member engagement and creating real and meaningful strategic and culture change. They outline how to create a thriving organization by focusing on purpose over…

  • The Missing C in C-Suite = Culture

    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.”

  • A Historic Shift in Expecting Leaders to Understand and Evolve Culture

    We are experiencing a historic shift in how people view the importance of culture and culture change. As a result, most CEOs and other top leaders will be expected to understand and deal with culture challenges proactively, or they will be considered both financially and morally negligent. Yes, financially and morally negligent. We are seeing top…

  • In Conversation with Edgar Schein: Answering Three Common Questions about Culture

    Culture can often be like a wet bar of soap—too slippery to grasp. To harness its force, we first need to understand its nature and dynamics. And there’s no better person to help us get a handle on organizational and team culture than Edgar Schein, one of the world’s most well-known culture pioneers.

  • Post #200 on CultureU – 7 Essential Insights Normally Missed in Culture Change Efforts

    This milestone post is a salute to passionate and experienced culture and performance change agents. You understand the power of culture in organizations and the challenge, frustration, restlessness, and exhilaration inevitably linked to intentional culture-related action. We’re living in the absolute best time in history to be involved in meaningful culture change. Culture is finally…

  • Closing the Massive Gaps Between Culture Awareness, Education, and Action

    It’s time to turn the culture world upside down and explode many incorrect notions that are preventing meaningful culture change for organizations and society. We’ve reached a critical point where most leaders are aware culture is important, but they range from being confused to intentionally uninformed about what culture change is all about. This culture…

  • 8 Culture Change Secrets Most Leaders Don’t Understand

    I spent 15 years learning and applying culture insights as a senior executive and consultant across multiple organizations before I started to proactively reach out to top culture pioneers and experts to learn about their culture facts and fundamentals. We can’t learn much about culture from the popular press and most social media is dominated…

  • 20 Organizational Culture Change Insights from Edgar Schein

    Grâce cette publication, vous pourrez accélérer le changement de votre culture organisationnelle. Chaque leader comprendra ici les bénéfices des réflexions critiques sur la culture ainsi que la résolution de problèmes, le changement, l’engagement, la stratégie, le recrutement et le consulting avec Edgar Schein, Professeur Émérite au MIT Sloan School of Management et personnalité la plus…

  • The Common Ground of Qualitative and Quantitative Culture Development Approaches (Part Two)

    This is the second post from a discussion between Professor Edgar Schein, arguably the #1 workplace culture expert in the world and a strong critic of culture surveys, and Dr. Robert A. Cooke, creator of the most widely used organizational culture assessment in the world. The discussion resulted in 12 key areas of common ground…

  • The Common Ground of Qualitative and Quantitative Culture Development Approaches (Part One)

    What happens when you have a discussion with Professor Edgar Schein, arguably the #1 workplace culture expert in the world and a strong critic of culture surveys, and Dr. Robert A. Cooke, creator of the most widely used organizational culture assessment in the world? It was exciting to see this discussion unfold to a point…

  • Workplace Culture vs. Climate – why most focus on climate and may suffer for it

    Culture is a hot topic. It was the Merriam-Webster “word of the year” for 2014. Leaders and experts across the world are talking about how to develop an agile culture, implement a lean culture, overcome the culture clash in acquisitions, and many other areas of culture change. Unfortunately, the reality is that most of these…

  • The Four Roots of Employee Engagement

    Haven’t we talked about employee engagement enough? Nope! Because despite the amount of time, energy and effort that organizations around the globe are investing in helping engage people in work, things aren’t improving much. Weekly pizza socials, guest speakers and telecommuting options are certainly appealing. I like pizza as much as the next guy. And,…

  • The first principle of successful culture shaping – The Shadow of the Leader

    I wrote about the four reasons culture-shaping efforts fail in my previous post (Organizational culture has reached a tipping point, yet many culture change initiatives fail for four key reasons). But what makes them succeed? What makes some culture-change efforts successful where others become simply another ‘flavor of the week’ training session that never translates…

  • GM Culture Crisis Case Study – A Tragedy and Missed Opportunity

    The GM ignition switch recall tragedy led to at least 13 deaths and was the result of 11 years of failure on many levels.  It’s a live case study on a sad culture crisis we all can and must learn from since culture is the most powerful force in organizations.  Rarely do we have a chance…

  • Replies to Questions and Comments posted during our 50th Anniversary Webinar (Part 2)

    The state of the art of organizational culture today versus half a century ago—with an emphasis on the Organizational Culture Inventory. Inquiring minds, organizational culture, and replies to Q&A during our 50th Anniversary Webinar (Part 2)

  • Culture Then & Now: Replies to Questions and Comments posted during our 50th Anniversary Webinar (Part 1)

    The first installment of a two-part post by Rob Cooke with quick answers, additional explanations, and recommended resources in reply to five of the questions/comments we received during (or after) a recent Webinar.

  • When Teams Thrive

    Working collaboratively together, when apart, requires a Constructive, inclusive team culture. Teams make better, faster decisions when they tap into the diverse views of every member while engaging in a process that ensures clarity and commitment for outcomes. A survival simulation game like the Digital Subarctic Survival Situation is ideal for virtual team building activities,…

  • HRCI Leads by Example with Culture and Agile Transformation

    The impact of a Constructive culture does not end within the walls of an organization. HRCI has a significant impact on the HR field. More than 500,000 HR professionals have earned certifications from HRCI, including certification holders in more than 125 countries. Understanding culture assessment and strategy and the difference between culture vs. climate, will…

  • Culture Connects the Dots for Equitable and Effective Public Safety

    Culture is the common thread in delivering equitable and effective public safety, according to newly retired Plymouth Police Chief Mike Goldstein and public safety culture consultants Cathy Perme and Amber Peterson, and corroborated by data.

  • Culture Change Starts with You

    Culture can be the unstoppable force to maximize your organization’s potential, but attempting to understand and evolve culture is not for the faint of heart.

  • Rowing Together: The Vital Role of Leadership Development in Culture Change

    Organizational culture is created through behaviors that grow into norms that influence how we behave at work. Therefore, culture change will occur when leaders begin to consistently exhibit new or different behaviors, setting the example for others to follow. Culture is stronger than any single leader, and once leaders start rowing together they become a…

  • Integrating Organizational Culture and Safety Performance

    Organizational culture and safety performance are inextricably linked. In order to improve safety performance, the organizational culture must be assessed and then employees engaged in improvement efforts.

  • Five Steps To Successful Mergers & Acquisitions

    Most mergers and acquisitions do not live up to their promised potential. Consensus is not reached, shareholder value often decreases, and integration becomes difficult. But these key steps can be taken to help ensure a successful M&A.