Culture Change

The collectively held norms and assumptions that make up organizational culture drive much of our behavior at work. What needs to shift in your culture to create a high functioning environment that supports your strategic goals?

Watch Video: Culture Change

Returning To Work Without Returning To The Past

How organizations design the return to the office, whatever form that may take, will be as important culturally as how they managed the onset of working from home.

While a high functioning organizational culture is a well-established enabler of business success, many organizations avoid confronting elements of their culture that are barriers to realizing their strategy. We partner with organizations to diagnose their current culture, envision their desired culture and design high-impact interventions that drive culture change.

Culture is key driver of value for the most successful organizations, underpinning everything from brand to EVP, engagement to innovation. A vibrant culture accounts for as much as a 20-30% performance differential against ‘culturally unremarkable’ comparables. It is not something which leaders should leave to chance.

We partner with you at any and all stages of your journey to:

Create a shared understanding

Some of our clients have a clear roadmap in mind, and others want more guidance on what would have the greatest impact in terms of driving their strategy. We work to understand your system – not the other way around. Our partnership is based on your existing timelines, priorities, and long-term ambitions.

Articulate the direction of your culture

We help your top team align on organizational purpose, values and identity. How can your core cultural narrative grow to become energising, pragmatic, resonant and distinctive? Top team alignment is a necessary but not sufficient condition of culture change – a pre-requisite for any successful transformation.

Assess the dimensions of your culture

To change culture, you need to be specific. We measure the health of your culture, and dive into what makes you unique. Real change is often more about finding the core strengths and qualities of your culture – those which have been taken for granted or overlooked – and putting them back into the heart of all you do.

Target the drivers of your culture

Culture is like a stream. You don’t change it by grabbing handfuls of water. You build turning points – specific initiatives which redirect the flow and have a persistent impact. YSC’s role is to help you create initiatives which act as turning points. We target three underlying factors: the leadership, social and structural drivers of change.

Evaluate and extend the impact

Culture is always evolving. Because your process is more important than ours, we work with the natural shifts in your culture and priorities. Ongoing assessment of your culture is critical to ensuring we have the highest-value impact possible – which we extend further, working where you think YSC is most needed.

CHANGE IS ABOUT LEADERSHIP

At YSC, working with the most senior global leaders is what we do, and we’ve done it for 30 years. No culture change transformation can succeed independently of senior leaders. Aligning with organizational strategy, setting the new direction, and role modelling ‘what good looks like’ all have to be done at the top of house. Throughout the whole organization, leaders at all levels bridge the gap between cultural ambitions and what eventually ends up happening on the ground. YSC works with leaders and leadership on a daily basis, and it’s this understanding which underpins our culture change practice.

CULTURE IS PERSONAL

Culture is about values, the reason we come into work every day, and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Organizational culture is not just another facet of corporate life – it matters to individuals at an emotional level. We work with inclusiveness at the heart of all we do, and as psychologists we understand that change happens only when you work with reactions, not against them. Culture change comes alive when individuals are supported to forge a personal connection to the new way.

Individual
Styles

It sounds obvious, but individuals carry culture. Individual leaders act as role models, create narratives, and reinforce patterns of behavior. We empower leaders to become culture carriers – defined as being aware of their role, bought-into it, and capable of influencing others.

Team
Dynamics

Culture change must be signalled from the top, and this starts with the executive team. We partner with top teams in terms of content and process – working with you to become a more effective unit as we together scope, shape and deliver culture change programs. The top team needs to lead in a way which both signals and reinforces the cultural shifts it needs to realize.

Organizational Culture

Effective culture change has both a central and a local component. Take a vast multinational. All employees around the world should know what it means to work there, and be inspired by it, but that doesn’t mean that the culture in the New York office should be the same as in Singapore, or that finance and HR need to operate in exactly the same way. We help you unravel what needs to be worked on centrally, and what should be devolved.

Case Studies

Refreshing Leadership Structure in a Disruptive Business Environment with Li & Fung

Leadership Development & Cultural Change With A Fortune 100 Retailer

Development & Sponsorship Program For High-Po Black & Latinx Leaders With Fortune 500 Company

Creating A Leadership Capability Framework With Coats

Designing A Custom 360 Feedback Tool With A British Multinational Insurance Company

To Make Return-To-Office Work, Use Basic Tenets Of Effective Diversity And Inclusion

Eric Pliner, YSC Consulting CEO offers advice in his Forbes.com article.

Leading Your Way Through Our Climate Crisis

A backdrop of environmental, geopolitical & economic shifts is driving many organizations to consider their role in addressing the climate crisis.

The Heart Of Business

Hubert Joly, former CEO & Exec Chair of Best Buy discusses his new book ‘The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism'.

Returning To Work Without Returning To The Past

How organizations design the return to the office will be as important culturally as how they managed the onset of working from home.

Cutting Through The Façade: 6 Lessons For DEI Right Now

Every business should consider these six reflections to avoid common pitfalls & to increase the likelihood of achieving meaningful, sustained impact.

Retaining Your Digital Talent

Is your firm suffering from the “digital deficit”? Are you finding it difficult to retain digital talent at a time you need it most?

Reframing Resistance

Reactions to culture change, even negative ones, are natural, human, and always insightful.

How To Write The Unwritten Rules

The best leaders shape the culture around them.

Aligning the Engines of Culture

How to leverage the three drivers of organizational culture change.

Meritocracy

The hidden risks to inclusion and the benefits of equity.

Untangling the Intangible

How to determine your organization’s cultural fingerprint

A Framework for Leaders Facing Difficult Decisions

In an article for HBR, YSC CEO Eric Pliner shares a framework for how to make difficult, subjective leadership decisions with clarity and integrity.

Culture Change

Returning To Work Without Returning To The Past

We partner with you at any and all stages of your journey to:

Create a shared understanding

Articulate the direction of your culture

Assess the dimensions of your culture

Target the drivers of your culture

Evaluate and extend the impact

CHANGE IS ABOUT LEADERSHIP

CULTURE IS PERSONAL

Individual Styles

Team Dynamics

Organizational Culture

Case Studies

Refreshing Leadership Structure in a Disruptive Business Environment with Li & Fung

Leadership Development & Cultural Change With A Fortune 100 Retailer

Development & Sponsorship Program For High-Po Black & Latinx Leaders With Fortune 500 Company

Creating A Leadership Capability Framework With Coats

Designing A Custom 360 Feedback Tool With A British Multinational Insurance Company

News & Research

To Make Return-To-Office Work, Use Basic Tenets Of Effective Diversity And Inclusion

Leading Your Way Through Our Climate Crisis

The Heart Of Business

Returning To Work Without Returning To The Past

Cutting Through The Façade: 6 Lessons For DEI Right Now

Retaining Your Digital Talent

Reframing Resistance

How To Write The Unwritten Rules

Aligning the Engines of Culture

Meritocracy

Untangling the Intangible

A Framework for Leaders Facing Difficult Decisions

Partner with us

Individual
Styles

Team
Dynamics