Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I made the mistake of trying to introduce my 19-month old daughter to culture at the weekend. Our trip to the Tate Modern was more like a Benny Hill sketch than a cultural exchange. I spent the afternoon chasing her from one crowded gallery to another, ducking and diving my way past bemused tourists.

Perhaps that needs to wait a year or two.

Culture was also on my mind last Thursday when we had three great speakers come into H&K to discuss their perspectives on organisational culture.

Domna Lazidou from Cranfield School of Management gave us some great insights based on her research on embedding values into organisations.

Her three takeouts were:

1. Educate managers about the differences between values and value statements

2. Base any values programme on a thorough understanding of existing cultural assumptions

3. Frame statements in relation to cultural assumptions and test how different frames influence employee meanings

If you are looking a values programme in your organisation I would thoroughly recommend speaking to Domna about this. She really does have some deep insights.

Our second speaker was Emma Berry who hads up IC at Pfizer in the UK. She talked about the cultural challenges following the post-merger  integration of Wyeth into the Pfizer organisation. Emma gave us a really grounded, pragmatic viewpoint and her 3 takeouts were:

1. Always keep your finger on the pulse – both formally and informally

2. Create regular opportunities for telling the stories that bring the culture to life

3. Keep line managers engaged – don’t let them become the ‘muddle in the middle’!

 We then were very fortunate indeed to have Yvonne O’Hara talk about some of the cultural and communications considerations she is facing as Head of IC at the DWP.

Her three takeouts were:

1. The board of directors/senior team needs to articulate its vision of where it wants to go and how it wants to get there. This should be agreed around the board table and woven through all related communications and conversations with staff so that they are reminded of it at all times and understand how their role fits into the bigger picture plans.

2. The relationship between the board of directors/senior team and the senior leadership layer beneath them should be adult to adult. The senior leadership team are involved in conversations and plans about the future, have the opportunity to feedback and to share with the board of directors/senior team what are the hot topics with staff.

3. HR and Internal Communications, wherever they sit within the organisation, have a shared HR and communications strategy which sets out their priorities and identifies where each function can add value. This means that the impact of the combined effort can be tracked and measured and the most important challenges are resolved effectively.

We are really grateful to Yvonne, Emma and Domna for taking the time to come and share their experiences.

If you have any ideas for any future events you think we should run here at H&K or would like to attend / participate please do drop me a line at scott.mckenzie@hillandknowlton.com