This document provides an overview of a workshop on designing organizational culture. It begins with welcoming participants and introducing the workshop agenda, which includes exercises for participants to look inside their own impact, assess their current culture, seek inspiration from other organizations, define their vision for culture, and design practices to achieve that vision. The workshop utilizes speed dating, ethnography, brainstorming, and other interactive exercises. It emphasizes principles like focusing on participants, making rather than telling, and inspiring creative confidence. The goal is for participants to leave with new understanding of culture and initial plans to shape the culture within their own organizations.

1. Welcome!
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2. Look inside Look around Look outside Define vision Create practices
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3. Values + practices
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4. “
Culture is generated from
ongoing contributions and
discoveries from both studio
owners and employees.
David Sherwin
”
Success by Design: The Essential Business Reference for Designers
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4
4

5. Culture is a key driver of
innovation & creativity.
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6. What if there was as much
intentionality around culture
as design?
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7. Look inside.
Own your impact
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8. What do you bring to your
culture?
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9. EXERCISE 6 MINUTES
Speed date
1 Pair up. Each of you has 1 minute to answer the question
that comes up on the screen.
2 When I yell, “Switch!”, rotate to a new person and answer
the next question that comes up on the screen.
Note: Answer all questions in relation to your work life, not your personal life.
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10. What makes you different? (at
work)
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11. What do you fight for? (at
work)
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12. How do you support
the success of others? (at
work)
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13. Did anything interesting come up?
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14. What kind of impact do you
want to have?
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15. EXERCISE 10 MINUTES
Start. Stop. Continue.
1 Think about an upcoming milestone that is important to you.
Write down the ideal end state (outcome).
2 Brainstorm one thing you could start, stop, and continue
doing to influence the outcome.
3 Mad Lib it: I will (action) _________ in order to (outcome)
_________ so that (why) _________.
exercise
from
Gamestorming
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16. Anyone want to share?
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17. Look around.
Assess your culture
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18. exercise
from
Tina
Seelig,
What
I
Wish
I
Knew
When
I
was
20
image
from
Tiliza31337,
Flickr
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19. Vu ja de
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20. image
from
danielfoster437,
Flickr
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21. What do you do to see things anew?
(vu ja de!)
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22. Be a flipologist.
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23. Designing Culture ©2013 23

24. EXERCISE 15 MINUTES
Be an ethnographer of your organization
1 Imagine you’re visiting your company for the first time.
2 What do you notice about communication, socializing,
reward systems, conflict, inspiration?
3 Write your observations in the columns on your worksheet.
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25. EXERCISE 15 MINUTES
Questions to ask yourself:
Communication:
1 How are news, information, directives, and plans shared between individuals, within teams, and throughout the
organization? Are they formal or informal? Ad hoc or planned? How effective are they?
2 Socializing:
In what ways do organic and structured socializing unfold? Who initiates it? Where does it happen? How often?
Does it feel authentic to participants?
3 Reward systems:
How are staff and management acknowledged and incentivized? How were these systems created? How visible are they?
How effective?
4 Conflict:
What does conflict look like, and how is it typically handled? Are conflicts typically resolved? How do people know, if so?
Inspiration:
5 Does brainstorming happen organically, in a structured way, or both? Privately or publicly? Where? With what frequency?
Who instigates it? Who feels entitled to contribute?
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26. EXERCISE 5 MINUTES
Be an ethnographer of your organization
1 ID themes. What stands out?
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27. What did you discover?
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28. Take a break.
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29. Look outside.
Seek Inspiration
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30. Image
from
Olgierd
Pstrykotworca,
Flickr
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31. Image
from
Olgierd
Pstrykotworca,
Flickr
Reinforce staff value.
Inspire from within.
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32. “We're looking for crazy ideas. We use kids to find
those ideas, because they know how to talk
without their thinking getting in the way.”
Founder, Markus Mettler
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33. Interject variance into
your process.
“We're looking for crazy ideas. We use kids to find
those ideas, because they know how to talk
without their thinking getting in the way.”
Founder, Markus Mettler
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34. The Real Whirled
image
from
Erik
Holladay,
Detroit
Free
Press
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35. The Real Whirled
Integrate new team
members.
image
from
Erik
Holladay,
Detroit
Free
Press
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36. What are the ten things
we should be doing next?
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37. Focus.
What are the ten things
we should be doing next?
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38. Designing Culture ©2013 38

39. Push your practice.
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40. Image
from
Odonata98,
Flickr
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41. Acknowledge peers.
Image
from
Odonata98,
Flickr
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42. image
from
Tom
Soderlund,
Flickr
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43. Empower + include.
image
from
Tom
Soderlund,
Flickr
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44. image
from
Kelly
Bone,
Flickr
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45. Create community.
image
from
Kelly
Bone,
Flickr
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46. Define your vision.
Have an ideal dynamic in mind
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47. Principles for this workshop
1 It’s about them, not us.
2 Make, don’t tell.
3 Inspire creative confidence.
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48. EXERCISE 10 MINUTES
Pyramid of Principles
1 Look at your culture assessment and notes about the
practices of other organizations.
2 Using those as fodder, come up with three principles to guide
the kind of culture you want to create.
3 Write one principle on each side of your pyramid template.
Cut out and assemble.
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49. Would anyone like to share?
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50. Turn vision into action.
Design Practices
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51. EXERCISE 3 MINUTES
The idea that would get you fired
1 Pick one principle and come up with a new practice that
would get you fired.
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52. EXERCISE 3 MINUTES
The idea that would get you fired
2 Now, bring that idea down to earth. Iterate and come up with
a version you can do…and still keep your job.
A stretch, but not impossible.
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53. EXERCISE 5 MINUTES
The idea that would get you fired
3 Trade with someone at your table (Principle + idea that
would get you fired + down-to-earth version).
Now come up with one new practice for your culture,
inspired by their principle and practices.
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54. What did you think up?
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55. If you really want to
up the ante…
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56. Create
the
culture
of
crea1ng
culture
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57. (Insert image of Cover Story example)
exercise
from
Gamestorming
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58. EXERCISE 15 MINUTES
Cover Story of the Future
1 Imagine your ideal future culture at work.
2 Brainstorm the elements that would make up a Fast
Company cover story about your team or organization.
Brainstorm: Where you document initial ideas for this exercise.
Cover: A phrase that captures the BIG story of your success.
Headline: The substance of the story.
Sidebar: Interesting facts.
Quotes: From someone you’d love to get accolades from.
Images: Sketches to support the content.
exercise
from
Gamestorming
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59. Inspiration
• David Sherwin, Success by Design: The Essential Business Reference for Designers
• Dave Gray, Sunni Brown, James Macanufo. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and
Changemakers
• Nicholas Graham, One Hundred Questions: Building a long-term brand in a short-attention span world
• Peter Sims, Little Bets
• Robert Sutton, Weird Ideas that Work: How to Build a Creative Company
• Tina Seelig, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
• Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs
Slideshare.net/TeresaBrazen
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60. Next Steps
1. Practice vu ja de
2. Use your Pyramid of Principles
3. Implement your practice
Extra Credit: Run a Designing Culture Workshop
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61. Design Leadership
Next Steps training at Cooper:
www.cooper.com/
1. Practice vu ja de training
2. Use your Pyramid of Principles Teresa Brazen
@TeresaBrazen
3. Implement your practice teresa@cooper.com
TeresaBrazen.com
Extra Credit: Run a Designing Culture Workshop
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