Glasgow Culture Change Case Study - how to unleash entrepreneurial people power.
Over the course of two years, I and another consultant worked with an amazing organisation in one of Scotland’s most deprived areas. Through a series of interventions, we helped empower the people on the front line and – in the process – reshape their organisation and transform their culture.
It’s a compelling story, not just because of the impact we played a part in, but because there’s so much to learn from it. It’s a case study that sheds light on the real issues that underpin an organisation’s culture, while it also offers interesting lessons around the techniques and approaches that work.
Culture Change is a challenge
The Indigo Group is a charitable organisation providing childcare services in Castlemilk, in Glasgow, which was created in 2007 following the merger of three smaller organisations. Based across three primary schools, together with separate nursery and youth facilities, it offers Early Years nurseries, Out of School Care and Youth Services.
The group’s income is split between grant funding from Glasgow City Council and fees from parents, while it employs around 70 people, including both full and part-time staff. Many of these staff and managers transferred to Indigo from the three smaller organisations, which led to a sense of division and suspicion from the early days of the merger – which in turn led to poor communication at all levels and, ultimately, an overall quality of service that fell well short of excellence.
The area of Castlemilk is an emerging regeneration area that has significant long-term unemployment, low skilled employment and poverty over several generations. Against this backdrop, the workforce often has negative assumptions about management. People here too often expect that change is something done to them, or imposed from afar, rather than something of which they can take charge. In my experience, this is a common dynamic which is hugely self-limiting: arguably, the workforce has the biggest role to play in changing any organisation.
At the time of this culture change project, the CEO of Indigo Childcare was Deborah Grant, who now works with Inspiring Scotland amongst other roles. She led the organisation throughout the change process and is the key individual responsible for how Indigo Group looks today.
Culture Change - How We Approached this Project.
Cultural change in organisations is notoriously difficult to make stick – generally, less than 25% of these efforts are sustainable. To make it work, everyone would need to be invested in the process, at all levels. So our work centred on operational staff and the factors that affect them. For Indigo, when staff are really connected to their tasks and feeling genuine ownership of the work, it would be the children in their care who benefit the most.
A such, we designed a project with the assumption that the people doing the work – the staff – knew best how to organise, respond and achieve results in their roles. We developed a package of interventions focused on, among other outcomes, on empowering staff to release their talents and creativity so that the whole organisation is enriched. Much of this work was based in two concepts – the workplace democracy approach pioneered by Ricardo Semler Maverick (Semler, R 1993), together with the Immunity to Change framework developed by Kegan and Lahey (Immunity to Change – Kegan, R & Lahey, L 2011).
The first of these would take the form of a staff-led process of active reflection on their daily work routines and tasks, with the support and cooperation of the management – encouraging fresh ideas and creative solutions that would improve both the work environment and performance
This cartoon is often what I use to tell the story of how we co-create an Immunity System to resist change.
The second area would be built around Immunity Mapping. This is focused on the idea that teams resist change to protect something they value, like the human body’s immune system. So to make fundamental change, it’s important to step back and study what the team’s working to protect – only then can you map the big assumptions and make sense of the complexity. From there, you can work with the immune system and not against it.
How to unleash Entrepreneurial people power.
Moving On through culture change
Our main project, Moving On, consisted of facilitated workshops with staff groups who share common tasks, along with some separate work done by individuals outside of the group work. A conscious effort was made throughout the process to maintain high level awareness of group dynamics and group experience thinking.
We facilitated sessions which helped the staff consider what changes and improvements they wanted to see in their areas of work. They then worked on developing these ideas through to implementation. Commitment to these revisions was guaranteed in advance – and delivered on in practice – from the management so the staff's involvement in the process linked clearly and directly to the improved outcomes.
To aid this awareness in the groups, we used Immunity Mapping to help the staff to plot out what was standing in the way of change, by looking at the assumptions causing those issues – enabling a more analytical and direct approach to issues thrown up during the group-based work. We then held sessions with the management team to ensure this process flowed through every level of the organisation.
Personal Profiling and culture change
Using the “Innermetrix” system, the organisation commissioned profiles of all their people, quantifying their qualities and mapping out how these could contribute. The process also served to give the leadership a better view of their people’s traits and principles, and offered the added bonus of emphasising the value of the business to the employee and vice versa.
CEO Q&As and culture change
As the main driver of the change programme at Indigo, the CEO decided to adopt a strategy of high visibility for staff. Part of this strategy was to run regular Q&A sessions, which were open to all. Staff were able to take particular concerns to these sessions and challenge the various rumours that inevitably circulated in the organisation.
Evidence of culture change - Annual Development Days 2011 and 2012
Held in 2011 and 2012, these days were important points in process, as they focused directly on change. They gave the CEO and the rest of the leadership the chance to prove their commitment to creating an open culture where staff could speak up and get involved with making improvements. Gathering everyone together helped cement this message, contributing significantly to the sense of renewal that underpinned the changes.
Valuing entrepreneurial initiative - people power
A conscious and deliberate effort was made by the leadership to encourage the staff to contribute to business development, service and quality improvement. So, as well as improving communication structures, this involved increased efforts to ensure transparency and accountability – with a clear signal that this shift in culture applied to managers as well as staff. We provided support for this aspect through the Moving On initiative, providing an objective perspective around issues approachability and accountability, as well as facilitating further work on the leadership team’s own styles – with work that ensured the programme could adapt in an interactive way.
The impact of culture change project - Outcomes
From the early days of the creation of Indigo through to the end of our work, we saw a huge change in the culture and character of the organisation. With our Moving On programme, the staff had the chance to drive change for themselves, with many of their ideas successfully implemented. This didn’t just show that Indigo was an organisation that genuinely empowered their people, but also made a significant lasting improvement to their services – a huge benefit for the children of Castlemilk.
The initial scepticism gave way to outright enthusiasm and approval for the process within a year’s work – the evidence of the impact was too great for the staff to ignore. Staff who had raised issues about poor communication and unprofessional management were much more positive at the annual review day a year on – describing the culture as open, with “lots of honesty” and “great communication”. And, as this healthier culture developed, rates of sick leave and staff turnover dropped and stabilised, which itself would a beneficial impact on costs, quality and team morale.
Deborah Grant described the culture in Indigo in the summer of 2012 as “unrecognisable” compared to two years ago. Characteristics of the changes were described as greater transparency, more honesty, more motivation and more creativity. A “listening culture” has emerged, where staff feel freer to express themselves and there is more cohesion.
“Duncan has vast experience in supporting change management within a range of organisation types. He is able to review, assess and evaluate complex problems and organise factual and anecdotal information. He creates incredible maps that incorporate thoughts, ideas and statistics. He has a calm supportive style which encourages individuals and teams to reflect, produce self generated answers and accept accountability. He applies his intellectual ability and theoretical knowledge into operational practices and solutions. The ability to work to time scales and deadlines, excellent communication and the ability to transfer strategic vision and views into operational practice are key strengths.
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