Leaders know culture matters but struggle to define, measure, or intentionally shape it. Culture initiatives tend to focus on surface-level interventions. There are the values on a lanyard, uplifting and motivational posters on the wall. They do engagement surveys (and lets be honest, do very little with the output) and pizza Fridays. But whilst doing all of this, the real culture remains unchanged.
There’s often a significant gap between espoused values and lived reality. Poor behaviours persist despite policies and training highlighting why they are not acceptable.
Performance suffers because the culture doesn’t support the behaviours needed for success. Leaders can’t articulate what emotional experience they want to create or how emotions drive performance, engagement, and well-being. Culture remains elusive, abstract, and seemingly impossible to influence.
Using the Emotional Culture Deck cards, the teams could feel Confused, Diminished, Judged, Reactive, Unwelcome.
But it do not have to be like this. We believe that leaders do want to develop supportive and engaging cultures, they just need a bit of help. This is where we come in. Beyond Transactional is a set of integrated approaches for a reason, because this work takes time, understanding different perspectives and resources to make change stick. We help our clients by using:
Emotional Culture Deck makes the invisible visible by getting to the heart of what people actually experience emotionally, providing concrete language and tools for shaping culture intentionally
Lumina Spark at team and organisational level reveals the collective personality and cultural norms, highlighting where diversity exists and where groupthink may be limiting performance
BREAKING framework enables cultural reset by addressing systemic issues around boundaries, recognition, expectations, and integrity
All three approaches embed cultural change by developing the capabilities needed to live the desired culture daily
As a result, the organisation develops an intentional emotional experience for all.
Using the Emotional Culture Deck cards, the teams could now feel Joy, Playful, Kind, Open, Non-Judgemental.
