The importance of culture is hard to overstate. No matter what you are trying to change or accomplish, the organisational culture can be either the biggest obstacle or a powerful engine.
Everything is interpreted through a cultural lens and how the organisation responds is shaped by its culture.
Culture is the way we behave and the assumptions that make us behave that way.
It is not something you can address directly. It is invisible, often unnoticed and only made manifest through action, artefacts and symbols.
When working with culture, you either work through these manifestations, through leadership or by ‘talking your way’ to a new mindset.
All culture is role-modelled by leadership, and changing a culture without leading the way is impossible. A culture is also defined by what the leadership focus their attention on, measures and talks about.
Communication in the traditional sense has a role to play, but the trick is to focus on the high-level reasoning and spend most of your efforts on local dialogue.
Culture is one of the few things in the world that can be changed by just talking about it. The more you empower the organisation to define how to live the culture, the stronger it will be.
Changing culture is usually not about convincing people that the new thing is right, but more about helping them navigate paradoxes and dilemmas and prioritise what is most important. This requires trust and transparency.
At Workz, we believe in the power of designed dialogues to create buy-in and translate values into local behaviour. We also believe that leadership matters and can be trained.
We use our communication toolbox to create campaigns with stunning visuals, meaningful materials and engaging movies.
We use process design to make events and workshops and our expertise in gamification to create dialogue tools and games that facilitate important discussions and bring conflicting agendas to light in a healthy way.
