Is the collective beliefs & behaviours that shape the interactions among your people. It's your ‘group DNA’. The unique identity that distinguishes your organization from all others.
Is the current atmosphere: the choices you expect, acknowledge, and encourage. Your culture remains constant. Your climate varies based on how well everyone knows what’s expected and rewarded.
“One misconception about highly successful cultures is that they are happy, lighthearted places. This is mostly not the case. They are energized and engaged, but at their core their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together.”
The attitudes and behaviours that identify someone as a member of your organization. We first establish team norms, clearly articulating what it means to "be" a citizen of your culture.
We then assess everyone's Cognitive Colour. This represents a collection of thought patterns hardwired into habits. They produce such consistent behaviour that they form a person's self-identity.
Under stress, emotion overrides thought. Work creates emotional stress. 'Shadow' identities represent reactions to these situations. Increasing awareness of this identity allows for better emotional regulation.
According to the APA, accountability is the ability to own one's choices. By simplifying the three main workplace identities, we increase people's ability to choose which to act from.
“We have a place in our brain that’s always worried about what people think of us, especially higher-ups. As far as our brain is concerned, if our social system rejects us, we could die. Given that our sense of danger is so natural and automatic, organizations have to do some pretty special things to overcome that natural trigger.”
Think of this as an internal conflict: the debate raging in people's minds whether to speak up. You may have created a safe space for sharing. But you can't change their lived experience. EQ helps people understand their feelings. It lets them know if the environment is truly unsafe or merely reminding them of their past.
Conflict within a team. Engaging with teammates is where people experience direct reactions to their questions, mistakes, feedback, and challenges. To improve safety at this level we teach conscious conflict. We show how to keep the climate safe, without falling into the trap of believing that culture must be a 'happy place'.
Conflict between teams. Trust is often earned within a team by defending it from other teams. If your heart defended itself from your lungs, the body would die, killing both organs. We turn organizations into organisms by replacing trust with safety. Expected responses to chaos, pressure and feedback are normalized across the organization.
Conflict between a leader's identities. Driver behaviour changes when police follow them. Officers hold power even if it's not used. A leader’s mere presence changes a room's dynamics, altering safety. They also hold multiple identities. Individual. Teammate. Boss. This grants mobility across an organization, affecting safety as they roam. Executive coaching and 360 reviews restore balance.
“A bad system will beat a good person every time. If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Our expertise in organizational psychology and emotional intelligence allows us to identify the root cause of any issue you may be facing. Our empathy as leaders of a growing enterprise helps us tailor solutions that fix these issues, without causing unwanted disruption or stress.
Each solution we offer is designed as a sprint - a 30 day program built to grow a specific capacity or solve a specific problem. A live, expert-led kick-off delivers the same understanding to all. 30 days of push notifications tailor learning to each learner's Cognitive Colour, creating habits.
Sprints are exceptional at addressing acute issues. Many high-growth organizations require more intensive work. CultureShifts are 90-day intensive programs that bundle the 3 sprints. You get a more comprehensive solution, and bundling multiple sprints activates discounts, lowering your cost.
For some change is constant and success is mandatory. Organizations in rapid growth and non-profits whose internal culture directly impacts the communities they serve are just two types of organizations we partner with on committed, monthly retainers. Receive on-demand access to all our resources, in the most budget-friendly package.