HOW TO PUT YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB: THE KEY TO LASTING CULTURE CHANGE

We’re a purpose-driven bunch here at Kin&Co, and we love nothing more than hearing our clients share the positive impact our work has had on them and their teams, and how we’ve helped them work for the world.

One of our clients recently got in touch to share an insight into what this impact looks like first-hand for them…

This client is a large global organisation with a community numbering in the tens of thousands. As with many organisations, they’ve had mixed experiences working with consultancies, which had bred cynicism across their workforce and a reluctance to engage in the culture change journey we were supporting them with.

However, their experience this time around has been quite different. We’ve helped them engage more of their community than ever before, boosted excitement around their future, built ownership over their culture and created a belief that things really can change. So, what’s the secret sauce to this dramatic shift in attitudes? Well, it’s something we call ‘The Kin&Co Way’.

THE KIN&CO WAY

The Kin&Co Way is what we call our promise to each other and our clients. It defines how we work every day, is a standard that we hold ourselves to account on, and is one of the ways we are disrupting the consulting industry forever. 

It’s made up of three core elements:

• Be human — this means being playful, honest, transparent and inclusive. None of us grew up dreaming of wearing a grey suit to work every day. We’re a group of diverse, vibrant and emotional individuals, with our own cares, beliefs and challenges. We want to work with people, not robots, and this means expressing ourselves and engaging with others on a human level.
• Nudge don’t judge — this is also one of our company values. It means meeting people where they’re at and seeking to understand or influence them. Importantly, it also means using behavioural psychology to drive change. People-related change is messy and emotional, and can therefore only be achieved through a real understanding of what makes people tick. This sits at the heart of everything we do.
• Love what you do — as part of being human in our approach, we all care deeply about the change we’re creating. We have a burning desire to create a positive impact through our work, and that motivates us to do what’s right for each other and our clients, not just what will make us commercially successful.

This approach was essential to creating the kind of experience that our client shared with us. But one aspect of this that is particularly impactful is the behaviour change aspect of ‘Nudge Don’t Judge’. How do you get a bunch of reluctants actively engaged in BEING the change, and then LEADING the change?

WE’RE COMMITTED TO PUTTING OURSELVES OUT OF A JOB

Whether you’re part of an organisation with 15 employees or 50,000, creating culture change isn’t easy and can’t be achieved by just one team. To change how people feel, think and act, you need to involve as much of your workforce as possible in the change journey. And you need them to really believe in it.

This involves ‘nudging’ people to take ownership of the change, and creating champions of it at every level, in every team. This approach was central to why the experience of the client who shared the message above with us was so different from their previous attempts at change.

Their people were involved, upskilled, met on their level, listened to and empowered to lead. They were shown from day one that things were being done differently, rather than having to wait for change until the new culture was defined. And they were made to feel truly part of the change journey — which they were, as for any true change to happen, it had to start and end with them.

Building this kind of capability and momentum within organisations is what we’re experts at. And, whilst passing on our knowledge to others and building individual leaders of change across the organisation may well put us out of a job, we believe that it’s the only way we’ll truly be able to achieve our purpose of making every organisation work for the world.