Workplace culture

Do not propose a culture. Propose the working agreement that is unclear.

Culture consultants are asked in when the tension is already personal: a team that avoids a manager, a values poster nobody uses, two companies that merged their logos and not their habits. Write the specific agreement you will help them make.

The working deal that is unclear

Name the deal. How a disagreement with a manager is raised. How the two teams from the merger decide a priority. What 'urgent' means after 6 p.m. A values workshop that produces four words is the engagement they think they want, and it is the one that left the poster on the wall. Offer the agreement instead, and mention the poster only to say you are not making another one.

Say who has to be in the room for the agreement to be real. If the manager at the centre of the tension is absent, you will not run the session. Write that as a condition, not a hope. Culture work that routes around the person with power becomes gossip with a fee.

Hearing from people without a survey theatre

Describe how you will listen. A small number of conversations, with a rule about what is attributed and what is themed. A twenty-question survey sent to everyone produces a dashboard and very little courage. If they already ran the survey, offer to read it and then talk to the people the scores point at, rather than running it again.

You will not discipline, mediate a legal dispute, or diagnose a person. Those belong to HR, a lawyer, or a clinician. The deliverable is a written agreement the team can point at six weeks later, and a short note on what you heard that they already know.