Case study
Culture development at WIKA: surveying the lived culture worldwide
How the WIKA Group surveyed its corporate culture across all regions with its Strategy 2030 in mind: using a survey, interviews and the Systemic Culture Compass.
Read moreCulture holding you back
The strategic direction is set out on paper. In everyday work, however, habits and expectations get in the way of the change it needs.
Does this sound familiar?
Ways of thinking and acting that once worked now block necessary change. Strategy and everyday reality are drifting further apart.
Common questions from practice
Which patterns of behaviour persist despite new goals?
What counts as accepted, risky or unspeakable in everyday work?
How do leadership, decisions and collaboration shape these patterns?
Which unwritten rules support your future direction – and which stand in its way?
Corporate culture is made up of shared core beliefs, expectations and patterns of communication and behaviour. It shows, for example, in how mistakes, dissenting views or responsibility are handled. The analysis relates these observations to the organisation’s strategy and tasks.
Go to field of action CultureAlso relevant: field of action LeadershipOr contact us directly:
„Culture is not created by decisions but by everyday practice. It shows not in mission statements but in what people do each day.“
Laura Wruck
Head of Values and Corporate Culture competence team | Senior Project Manager | Business mediator
Lasting impact in your company
- Assess culture with the Systemic Culture Compass
With the Systemic Culture Compass, we assess your lived culture both quantitatively and qualitatively. It maps the defining character of your organisation onto four basic orientations: collaborating, creating, competing and controlling. This shows which patterns support your future direction and which hold it back – the basis for targeted culture development.
- Enable change in everyday work
As transformis sees it, culture can be influenced indirectly: through the conditions in which people make decisions and work together. Culture analysis, the target picture and suitable interventions are therefore considered together. What matters is which specific leadership and work routines should change in a way the people involved will notice.
- Work with observable examples
How do people react to a dissenting view? How is a mistake handled? Who can raise a difficult issue? Specific situations make the unwritten rules visible. They are then compared with the strategic direction the company is aiming for.
- Change conditions, not just mission statements
Newly worded values can provide direction. Their effect depends on how people experience leadership, decisions and collaboration. From this, suitable changes to routines and expectations are derived and reviewed as the work progresses.
- Observe the cultural rule in a real situation
Culture shows in recurring expectations and concrete behaviour. If a new goal does not take hold in everyday work, we pick a typical situation: a difficult decision, feedback on a mistake or a conflict between departments. Those involved describe which behaviour is expected, rewarded or avoided there. Leadership examines which structures and mandates support this unwritten rule.
The diagnosis leads to a new practice that can be tested and reviewed together. A Cultribute analysis can bring in further perspectives. A new values poster only matters once people experience something different in such situations. Impact has to be observed in how people actually work together.
Cultural blockage becomes the capacity to develop. Contradictions become clarity. Identity becomes strength for the future.
Explore the topic further
Explore examples of our work and ideas for your own transformation.
Fachartikel
Leadership systems: leadership as an organisational function
Leadership as an organisational function: how roles, expertise and the six tasks of the leadership wheel turn uncertainty into shared decisions.
Read moreFachartikel
Understanding and developing corporate culture
What the rules people actually live by have to do with strategy, leadership and change.
Read more
Frequently asked questions
Can corporate culture be changed by decree?
No. What can be changed are the conditions in which people make decisions and work together. As Robert A. Sedlák, founder and CEO of transformis, puts it: “Culture is central to a company’s identity and cannot be changed at the push of a button or by a board resolution.” Culture analysis, the target picture and suitable interventions are therefore considered together.
Where does a corporate culture assessment start?
With specific recurring situations and the expectations at play in them: a difficult decision, feedback on a mistake or a conflict between departments. Those involved describe which behaviour is expected, rewarded or avoided there. These observations are related to the organisation’s strategy and tasks; a Cultribute analysis can bring in further perspectives.
What role does leadership play in AI adoption?
Leadership examines which structures and mandates support the unwritten rule, clarifies mandates and changes the routines that sustain existing behaviour. Newly worded values can provide direction; their effect depends on how people experience leadership, decisions and collaboration. From this, changes to routines and expectations are derived and reviewed as the work progresses.
How can you tell that the culture is changing?
In different decisions and experiences in everyday work. The diagnosis leads to a new practice that is tested and reviewed together. A new values poster only matters once people experience something different in the chosen situations. Impact has to be observed in how people actually work together, not in mission statements.
Why does corporate culture matter for business performance?
The “Global Innovation 1000” study series by Booz & Company (2004 to 2011), analysed by transformis in its white paper “New Work” (2021), found that culture is a key factor in innovation success, whatever the innovation strategy. Companies whose culture supported their innovation strategy achieved 33 per cent more enterprise value and 17 per cent profit growth over five years.
Often linked to
Prefer to talk directly?
Or simply get in touch. We are happy to talk everything through in person – without obligation, in confidence and as equals.
Laura Wruck
Head of Values and Corporate Culture competence team | Senior Project Manager | Business mediator
Your initial call
Let’s talk about your situation and what you want to develop in your organisation.
- Your situation
- What brings you to us
- Possible next steps