Organisational culture change training
One day · in-person
A one-day course on understanding and changing organisational culture. You will map the culture you actually have, identify what needs to shift, and design practical interventions that create lasting change.
Culture is not a poster on the wall or a set of values printed in a handbook. It is the way people actually behave when no one is watching - the unwritten rules, habits, and assumptions that shape how work gets done.
Changing culture is one of the hardest things any organisation can attempt. It is also one of the most important. Get it right and you create an environment where people do their best work, stay longer, and pull in the same direction. Get it wrong - or ignore it entirely - and everything else you try to improve will be harder than it needs to be.
This course gives you a practical understanding of how culture works, why it resists change, and what you can actually do about it.
What you will work on
You will spend the day working on your organisation's real culture - not an idealised version of it, but the one that actually exists. The course is structured around three areas:
Understanding the culture you have - Before you can change anything, you need to see clearly what you are working with. You will map the visible and invisible elements of your current culture - the stated values and the real behaviours, the official processes and the informal shortcuts, the stories people tell and what those stories reveal. Most culture change fails because it starts from where leaders wish the culture was, not where it actually is.
Edgar Schein's Culture Model is especially useful here, helping you explore the gap between what an organisation says it values and the deeper assumptions that actually drive behaviour.
Tools like the Cultural Web help you examine six specific elements of culture - from stories and rituals to power structures and control systems.
Identifying what needs to shift - Not everything needs to change. Effective culture work is about identifying the specific behaviours, norms, and systems that are creating problems - and understanding why they exist. You will learn to distinguish between surface symptoms and root causes, and to focus your energy where it will have the most impact.
Designing practical interventions - Culture does not change through announcements. It changes through consistent, deliberate action over time. You will design a set of practical interventions for your organisation - changes to processes, rituals, rewards, and leadership behaviours that nudge culture in the direction you need it to go.
Who this is for
Leaders, HR professionals, and anyone responsible for shaping how their organisation works and feels. Whether you are planning a deliberate culture change programme or simply trying to understand why things work the way they do, this course will give you tools you can use.
Particularly valuable for organisations going through change - mergers, restructures, growth phases - where culture often shifts without anyone planning it.
What you will take away
A clear map of your organisation's current culture - the real one, not the official one. A prioritised list of the specific cultural shifts that would make the biggest difference. A set of practical interventions you can start implementing. And a realistic sense of what culture change actually takes - including the patience, consistency, and leadership commitment it demands.
How the day works
The format mixes facilitated inputs on how culture works with structured diagnostic exercises and planning time. You will work on your own organisation throughout, with guidance from the facilitator and insights from other participants facing similar challenges.
Groups are kept to ten to sixteen people.
What makes this different
For more on how culture works and how to shift it, see our article on developing organisational culture.
This course is grounded in how culture actually works - not how we wish it worked. We do not pretend that writing new values on a wall changes anything. Instead, we focus on the practical levers that leaders and teams can pull to create real, lasting shifts in how people behave. If your organisation needs deeper support with culture change, our change management consultancy and organisational development consultancy work alongside leadership teams to design and sustain transformation.
The Cultural Web is a model for understanding and mapping organisational culture across six interconnected elements. It helps you see how stories, rituals, symbols, power structures, controls, and organisational structures shape the way things are done.
Edgar Schein's Culture Model explores organisational culture at three levels - visible artefacts, stated values, and the deeper underlying assumptions that really drive behaviour. It helps organisations get beneath the surface of what their culture actually is.
The Competing Values Framework is a model for understanding organisational culture by mapping it across two dimensions - flexibility versus stability, and internal versus external focus. It reveals which of four culture types your organisation leans towards.
A practical guide to developing organisational culture. Cuts through the theory to explain what culture actually is, why most culture change programmes fail, and how to develop culture in a way that lasts - by working with your organisation as a living system, not a machine.
How strategic planning can become a powerful organisational development tool in its own right. When done well, the process of building strategy simultaneously builds collective intelligence, transforms culture, and creates adaptive capacity.
Get in touch to find out more or book a place
Whether you're navigating a merger, rethinking how you're structured, or trying to shift a culture that isn't working - start with a conversation.