Corporate Culture Reviews

Case Report: Corporate Culture Assessment

A small (200 employees) but very powerful organization had experienced four Presidents in as many years due to frustrations of trying to drive an entrepreneurial spirit within a government controlled and monitored system. The new President had just hired three of the top four executives and wanted assistance in pulling the management team together to drive a more action-oriented and open culture. In preparation for designing and facilitating an offsite management session, Dr. Sayer explored the current corporate culture through a review of current mandates and management briefs, interviews with each member of the Board of Directors, interviews with each senior executive and with selected managers.

Outcome: There were two immediate and very positive outcomes from the management session. The negative or untrue beliefs and expectations of the senior executives were confronted and discussed, generating what several participants called “the first sense of team we’ve had in management”. Secondly, the whole group broke through previous ‘silo mentality’ to generate a strategy in which they would all help to make immediate gains for the one department charged with the greatest demands for profitability.

Case Report: Design and Facilitation of Culture Change Workshops

After a merger of three Federal departments into one “mega-department’, a Director saw that the morale of his department managers (one of the original three departments) was very low. They were not being effective in the new merged committees and were having difficulty supporting the change with their employees. A session was designed to determine the causes of their low morale, and to assist them in generating plans to improve their own success with their new peers as well as improve the enthusiasm of their own employees for the change.

Outcome: The managers left the session with renewed confidence in their abilities to solve problems effectively and creatively. They remembered what issues they had tackled in former years and how they had been successful in resolving them. This led them to be more proactive in their new roles in the new organization, which, in turn, increased the real productivity the organization received from their time spent on the job. Several went on to be real leaders within their own groups of management teams.