INDEPENDENT COUNSEL | TALENT & LEADERSHIP | CULTURE & ORGANIZATION | STRATEGY & EXECUTION
Culture & Organization
Culture and social norm assessment
Cultural enablement and transformation
Aligning operating model and culture
Culture is lived, not laminated. It shows up in the organization’s norms: what people pay attention to, what behaviors are accepted, what confers status, and which work generates energy.
We help leaders identify the norms, routines, patterns, and leadership behaviors that need to shift.
OUR APPROACH
We distinguish between the stated culture and the lived norms that govern behavior
We uncover what the organization informally rewards, tolerates, fears, imitates, and teaches
We identify the routines, leadership behaviors, and moments that most profoundly shape the culture
QUESTIONS WE ADDRESS
Which norms, routines, and leader behaviors need to shift for the culture to support the strategy?
What does the organization informally teach people to value, imitate, and avoid?
Where in the organization does “we” become “they”?
How do we maintain our culture as we leverage AI?
WHERE WE BEGIN
Bespoke culture and organizational diagnostics
Enhancing senior leader impact and role-modeling
Interventions to shift collaboration, challenge, accountability, and pace
Reshaping social norms and local dynamics
Arkae & Co. in action:
Unlocking performance by resetting accepted norms
A CEO was appointed to lead a new business combining two underperforming divisions of a global professional services firm. While competitors were growing at up to 9% a year, the two inherited businesses averaged just 3% over three years.
A culture of underperformance
The underlying issue was cultural. Underperformance had been tolerated; standards were inconsistent.
We were brought in to advise the CEO, coach the executive team, and shape a cultural strategy. We helped leadership identify the critical moments where culture was formed: partner behavior, team routines, client decisions, leadership accountability, and the standards that managers reinforce.
Priorities clear, performance up
Senior blockers were addressed. The executive team became more deliberate about the behavior they reinforced. A three-day partner meeting set clearer expectations. The routines of the strongest managers were studied, codified, and scaled.
The impact was swift: the business achieved first-year growth of 15% at the bottom line.