Culture & Identity

Planned changes always happen within the context of company culture, although their stabilising effect can create the impression that they are more of a hindrance than a help.

When changes go deep, patterns must also be questioned and broken up at the same time. At that point, there’s no getting around the fact that culture is not only context but is also subject to change.

Questioning things that go without saying

We look at organisations from an ethnologist’s perspective – with curiosity and respect. We question things that seem to go without saying and train our gaze on things that are invisible.

The lack of one-size-fits-all patterns and set recipes when you’re working on a strong and functioning company identity is what makes this work so interesting. We work with the culture, not against it, and talk about what’s really important. Organisational culture creates stability and brings the outside and the inside images into harmony. That doesn’t make change any easier. But it makes it all the more rewarding.

Bank shots

You can’t tackle culture head-on. But we have a large toolbox we can use to impact culture in a targeted manner.

We use tried-and-tested qualitative analytic methodologies to make patterns and unspoken assumptions visible and open to discussion.

We tell it like it is and point out where entrenched patterns and implicit rules are dysfunctional.

The organisational design approach enables integrated thinking about and shaping of culture, structures, processes, systems and rules.

It lets us open up spaces where it is possible to question things that go without saying.