Culture in Practice

Culture affects how people communicate, make decisions, work together, respond to problems and lead. But culture is different in every organisation. That’s why we don’t offer a standard “culture program”. We work with organisations to understand the cultural issues that matter to them and then design a program around those issues.

The focus is practical: understanding what is happening, developing the skills to do things differently, practising those skills and applying them in the workplace.

Our approach

We use the same learning model that underpins our capability programs:

Learn → Reflect → Practise → Apply → Embed

The content is tailored to the organisation. Depending on the issues identified, this might include:

  • trust and accountability
  • communication
  • feedback
  • difficult conversations
  • collaboration
  • leadership behaviour
  • psychological safety
  • speaking up
  • conflict
  • respect and inclusion
  • decision-making
  • managing change

The aim isn’t to tell an organisation what its culture should look like. It is to help people understand their culture, their behaviours and what needs to change.

Learning Cycle

Learn

Participants develop an understanding of the issues that have been identified and the skills needed to address them. Learning is practical and evidence-informed, with a focus on what people can actually use in their day-to-day work.

Reflect

Cultural change requires people to consider their own role. Participants have opportunities to think about:

  • their own behaviour
  • the behaviours they see around them
  • what they tolerate or avoid
  • how their actions affect others
  • what they could do differently

The aim is to build awareness, ownership and responsibility.

Practise

Knowing that something needs to change doesn’t necessarily mean knowing how to change it. Participants have a safe environment to practise new approaches. This might include:

  • difficult conversations
  • giving and receiving feedback
  • addressing conflict
  • speaking up
  • challenging assumptions
  • setting boundaries
  • collaborative problem-solving
  • addressing accountability issues

Participants can try, receive feedback, hear different perspectives and try again.

Apply and embed

Participants apply the learning to real situations — having a conversation, changing a team practice, addressing an issue or approaching a problem differently. They then return to the learning environment to discuss what happened.

What worked? What didn’t? What did you learn? What would you do differently?

This connects the learning directly to workplace behaviour.

Understanding the organisation

We start by understanding the organisation and its context. This might involve conversations with leaders and staff, existing organisational data, surveys, facilitated discussions or other information the organisation already has.

We look at questions such as:

  • What is working?
  • What isn’t working?
  • What behaviours are contributing to the problem?
  • What needs to be different?
  • What would that look like in practice?

This gives us the foundation for designing the program.

Leadership matters

Leaders have a significant influence on culture through what they do, reinforce, challenge and tolerate. Leadership involvement is therefore an important part of the process.

We work with leaders to understand their role, reflect on their own behaviour and identify the actions they can take to support the changes the organisation is trying to make.

What organisations can expect

  • Measurement — a focus on what is actually different as a result of the work.
  • A tailored approach — built around the organisation’s actual cultural priorities.
  • Practical learning — evidence-informed ideas and skills people can use.
  • Reflection — opportunities to consider individual and collective behaviour.
  • Practice — a safe environment to try new approaches.
  • Application — opportunities to use the learning in real workplace situations.
  • Reinforcement — support to make changed behaviours part of everyday practice.