Whatever your culture was, it’s something different now

Whether your organization ends up choosing a remote, onsite or hybrid workforce model, your culture has already changed - a result of the disrupted work environment (context) experienced by your people during the past 18+ months. 

What we know about human beings is that when the context changes, so does behavior - a product of our long evolution which has helped our species survive. Your culture is best understood as an emergent phenomenon of the organization’s circumstances, which means it is a consequence of the complexity of actions, interactions and behaviors of your workforce.

As a complex system, the organization is far more than the sum of its parts: the arrangement of these parts is what counts. When the arrangement changes - like working virtually instead of in person at the office - the emergent property, your current culture, will change. 

This is an opportunity. 

In addition to sorting out their workforce model, the strategic question that many of our clients are asking right now is whether the current actions and patterns of behavior shaping their culture today are what is needed to deliver growth tomorrow. 

What we’ve observed is that the most engaged companies are not the most engagement-oriented, and the firms that adapt the best to change are not those who make ‘change management’ their primary aim. Rather in both cases it is the firms which are most aware of the truth of where they are and what their people are experiencing.