Case Study: Culture15 Diagnosis
The Challenge/Context
With a new CEO, The BMJ Group was looking at a significant reshaping of its business strategy. To support the shaping and implementation of the new strategy, the CEO wanted to understand the existing culture and which behaviours that could act as barriers, or as enablers for the change ahead.
The Approach
We conducted a full culture diagnostic to create a baseline of the existing culture and tease out the behavioural changes would be required to support future growth. We used our Culture15® diagnostic tool to conduct a global survey, revealing the organisation’s defining behaviours, segmented by geography and department, evaluating the extent to which certain sought-after capabilities were in evidence, such as High Performance, Innovation and Agility. We supplemented the quantitative diagnostic with a number of virtual focus groups with international audiences, and senior leader interviews. We consolidated findings into a full culture diagnostic report which the CEO subsequently shared with the Board to support the case for change.
The Impact
The culture diagnostic revealed several key behaviours that would need to shift in order to support the creation of a higher performance, more innovative and agile culture – notably, the need to be more decisive than discursive in decision-making, and to increase levels of challenge over harmony in people interactions. The supplementary qualitative activities we undertook – notably the focus groups – helped us to understand the perceived barriers for change, which included some of the behaviours and communication styles within the leadership team itself.
The diagnostic enabled us to ‘hold up the mirror’ to the CEO and Executive Team and help them to build a common understanding of the organisational culture today and their role within it, without having to rely on anecdote or hearsay. The diagnostic provided an objective, common view of the key behaviours in evidence today, as well as supporting a laser focus on the anything that would act as barriers to future culture change. Supplemented by the qualitative focus groups and interviews, the Exec Team were able to understand the role they needed to play in shifting the culture forwards and started the work by focusing on their role modelling capability. The work generated a cultural baseline which the organisation will continue to measure against throughout its transformation and use as a means to report on progress.
“When I joined BMJ as CEO, with a new strategy to deliver, I needed to gain a deep understanding of the culture as quickly as possible, in order to understand where my team and I should focus our efforts for maximum impact, and any barriers that may get in our way. Culture15 did just that: In a few short weeks, it gave us accelerated insight into the behaviours within the organisation, so that we could take an informed view of where we needed to develop further in order to deliver against our strategy.”
Chris Jones, CEO , British Medical Journal
