When Atlassian shifted from in-person offices to a fully distributed workforce amid Covid, its leaders leaned into the transparency and trust elements of its organizational culture to try to make that major transition successful. The tech company’s co-founders posted videos of themselves sharing updates, including proactively highlighting unknowns. They created a team focused on best practices around remote collaboration, which then enlisted about one thousand employee volunteers to encourage adoption of specific practices and behaviors.
Microsoft famously initiated a cultural shift in the mid-2010s, when CEO Satya Nadella led the company’s workforce to embrace a growth mindset as the foundation of its culture. A decade later, executives questioned how pervasive that approach was and whether it was the right foundation for Microsoft’s next phase. They embarked on a listening tour and concluded the culture didn’t need to change, but how they talked about it did. One outgrowth of that was a revival of “culture conversations,” where teams discuss a growth mindset culture and how it can help advance Microsoft’s new business priorities. The company’s HR and employee communications teams created toolkits with specific guidance and resources for managers to hold those conversations.
The above are high-level glimpses of just two of the case studies in a new research playbook from Charter examining how organizations have successfully used their cultures as a central tool to succeed at large-scale change. As the case studies demonstrate, culture can be a constant through uncertainty, a manual for leaders in redefining or doubling down on values, or a north star to guide workers through transformation.
The playbook, whose publication was supported by Philip Morris International, includes practical takeaways for leaders to apply to their own change efforts, as well as insights from academics and other experts who study culture about how best to steward it through change.
Download it here. And register for a related webinar on December 2 from 12-1pm ET to discuss culture and change management directly with top executives and experts.