Michele Smith Consulting

Helping you to design success

Culture Deep Dive

Introduction

What is culture?

Organisational culture is the set of values, beliefs, attitudes, systems, and rules that outline and influence employee behaviour. Culture reflects how employees, customers, and stakeholders experience the organisation and its brand.

Culture is created through consistent and authentic behaviors, not press releases or policy documents. You can watch company culture in action when you see how a CEO responds to a crisis, how a team adapts to new business demands, or how a manager corrects an employee who makes a mistake.

And we all know - culture eats strategy for breakfast!

Why is culture important?

  • Culture is the glue that binds an organisation together.
  • Improves recruitment efforts – 77% of workers consider a company’s culture before applying. Improves employee retention – culture is one of the main reasons that 65% of employees stay in their job.
  • Improves brand identity – 38% of employees report wanting to change their job due to poor company culture.
  • Improves engagement – companies with a positive culture have up to 72% higher employee engagement rate.

What is the board and CEO's role?

Given the significance of culture to an organisation’s success, change must be driven and supported by the leadership of those who govern and manage it. 

The board and CEO have a responsibility to understand the culture of the organisation, and whether there is congruence between the more observable indicators of culture (such as the company’s stated mission and values) and the shared underlying assumptions (the shared norms) that really determine how things get done.

This requires them to access a variety of sources of information, including  analysing how things work in the organisation.

Proposal

Culture Deep Dive

I use individual interview based methods using a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats framework (SWOT).

Interview based methods are more qualitative in nature, they are good for delving into complex organisational dynamics and often sensitive interpersonal relationship issues in depth.

I interview your key leaders and create a space that builds safety and trust  but also encourages open reflection, collaboration and accountability.

Deep Dive Result

I will deconstruct your SWOT results to uncover the values, assumptions, and belief trends that are influencing decisions and behaviours.

By interpreting your results ‘in context’, I help you understand how your culture is enabling or interfering with strategy execution, employee engagement, and performance.

This provides you with the insights you need to take a targeted approach to building a culture that  leverages your strengths while making the changes required to achieve your goals.