Building and Sustaining a Winning Culture

Situation

A start-up creative agency established a list of values and culture guidelines. The organization grew to the point where senior managers needed to rely on a group of middle managers to give day to day guidance and support to the workforce. At that point, employees began to question seriously the extent to which the organization culture matched the cultural aspirations of the founders. Specifically, the unwritten rules were at odds with the founding principles.

Senior leaders were not tuned into the buzz at the bottom and believed that they were on track with a winning culture. They asked Centauric to conduct an all hands retreat to help prepare for anticipated rapid growth. As part of the retreat, leaders discovered that ambiguity and misalignment posed significant risks to successful growth. It was time to reduce the “talk-do-gap” and get culture back on track.

Centauric Contribution

Centauric helped leaders to clarify five critical behaviors that leaders would need to model, reinforce and nurture for long term success. Centauric facilitated ongoing honest dialogue among senior leaders and between leaders and the rest of the organization. Centauric conducted pulse surveys to keep everyone informed about progress and to allow course corrections.

Outcomes:

Leaders learned the importance of being clear about their expectations, leading by example and holding others accountable. Middle managers learned the importance of speaking up and employees understood their role in maintaining a high performance culture.

1. Organization Assessment
2. Team Coaching
3. Culture Development
4. Change Management