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Culture Transformation Stages
- 1. © 2016 Tommy Thomas, PhD Page 1 of 3
CULTURE TRANSFORMATION STAGES
Opposite Strengths culture transformations range from a single executive
coaching engagement to training and coaching thousands of people. Each follows a basic
evolution as it cascades throughout an organization.
In the following story, Smith & Jones (a fictional IPA Top 100 Accounting Firm)
has acquired the rights to implement Opposite Strengths culture transformations in its
clients. As a result, Smith & Jones now brands itself uniquely among its peers as “the
people experts.” This story is compiled from actual experiences and conveys how an
ideal culture transformation unfolds for a Smith & Jones client.
Stage 1 – Executive Coaching: Tom Smith, founder and current Managing
Partner of Smith & Jones, knew that the CEO of ABC Healthcare, Bill Reynolds, had
been struggling with relationship and strategy issues with his executive team. Tom
listened carefully to the problems expressed by Bill and recommended that he discuss
these problems with Charlie Baker, a Smith & Jones director and Opposite Strengths
Certified Coach. Bill was intrigued and agreed.
Bill and Charlie hit it off. Bill accepted Tom’s proposal for an individual Opposite
Strengths online subscription and included Charlie’s personally coaching Bill for six
months. Charlie and Bill met in person for one hour every two weeks with Bill
contacting Charlie by phone and email as needed in between scheduled coaching
meetings.
Bill was impressed with the language and effectiveness of Opposite Strengths and
the work by Charlie.
Stage 2 – The Executive Retreat: Based on his experience with Charlie and
Opposite Strengths, Bill approached Tom about holding an executive retreat to teach
the Opposite Strengths language to all 12 executive team members.
Tom explained to Bill the business results he could expect from the executive
retreat in terms of increased executive team effectiveness and relationships. In particular
one of the executive team members, Sharon Nelson, was considering an offer of
employment from a competitor primarily because of the executive team’s internal
relationship conflicts. Losing this team member would incur at least $300,000 in
voluntary turnover expenses – the executive search fee alone would be $150,000.
Bill accepted Tom’s proposal for an executive retreat. The proposal included
Opposite Strengths online subscriptions for the executive team, a one-day Opposite
Strengths Seminar facilitated by Charlie (also an Opposite Strengths Master Certified
Facilitator) for the 12 executive team members, and one hour of individual alignment
coaching for each of the team members afterwards – also by Charlie.
Sharon became a loyal team member as the cohesiveness of the executive team
increased. Bill was pleased with the results – both in the increase in the team’s
productivity and the retention of Sharon.
- 2. © 2016 Tommy Thomas, PhD Page 2 of 3
Stage 3 – The Small Pilot Program: The executive team was struggling with
the problem of voluntary turnover. ABC was average for a U.S. healthcare system with
20% voluntary turnover, and they knew voluntary turnover was expensive. They had
experienced Opposite Strengths make them a more effective team. They began to see
that Opposite Strengths could be a long-term strategic initiative to create a feeling of
community within ABC and thus drive down the voluntary turnover rate.
Tom proposed a pilot program for a group of 1,000 employees representing 5%
of the 20,000-employee population. The program consisted of Opposite Strengths
online subscriptions for 1,000 people plus 25 Opposite Strengths Seminars each co-
facilitated by Linda Butler (a Smith & Jones director and Opposite Strengths Master
Certified Facilitator) and Charlie. Seminars were held at the rate of one per week with
40 employees attending each seminar. Bill accepted Tom’s proposal.
Because the evaluation of this six-month small pilot program showed high
satisfaction among employees with the experience of the seminar and a strong trend in
reduction of voluntary turnover from 20% to 19.6%, the executive team decided to
move to the next stage of culture transformation – the large pilot program.
Stage 4 – The Large Pilot Program: The executive team chose to train an
additional 15% of their population or 3,000 employees in Opposite Strengths for two
reasons: 1) Tom showed Bill that reaching critical mass was important for the
momentum of full-scale culture transformation to take hold, and critical mass was
achieved when 11-20% of the population has learned the Opposite Strengths language,
and 2) Bill took Tom’s suggestion that this 15% of the population needed to be recruited
from across all levels and departments of the organization so as to seed the Opposite
Strengths language throughout the organization.
Bill accepted Tom’s proposal for a two-part program.
In the first part, ABC received Opposite Strengths online subscriptions for 3,000
people. In addition, Linda and Charlie trained eight ABC employees to be Opposite
Strengths Certified Facilitators. The significant result of this first part was that ABC
could now sponsor its own Opposite Strengths Seminars independently of Smith &
Jones since eight ABC employees were now Opposite Strengths Certified Facilitators.
In the second part, these eight employees – all Certified Facilitators – then
facilitated 75 Opposite Strengths Seminars (with two facilitators per seminar) at the rate
of two seminars per week with 40 employees attending each seminar.
Because the evaluation of this nine-month large pilot program showed high
satisfaction among employees with the experience of the seminar and a strong trend in
reduction of voluntary turnover from 19.6% to 18.4%, ABC decided to move to the
next stage of culture transformation – the full-scale transformation.
Stage 5 – The Full-scale Transformation: Based on the results of the large
pilot program, Bill accepted Tom’s proposal for Opposite Strengths online subscriptions
for training the remaining 80% of their population – 16,000 employees. ABC sponsored
five Opposite Strengths Seminars per week with 40 participants per seminar resulting in
200 employees trained each week over 80 weeks.
The evaluation of the project showed that the voluntary turnover rate dropped
from 18.4% to 12%. Not only did ABC save a tremendous amount of money but ABC
also became known as “the” healthcare system to work for in their marketplace. The
ABC executive team (especially Bill) was extremely pleased with the results.
- 3. © 2016 Tommy Thomas, PhD Page 3 of 3
SUMMARY
This example of a culture transformation illustrates the general structure of a
culture transformation for a relatively large organization. However, not all culture
transformations will have all these stages, and some will have one or more stages within
stages (e.g. there could be two small pilot programs). Sometimes stages will be skipped.
Each culture transformation has its unique features. In order to guide a client through a
culture transformation, the partner in charge must remain flexible to the needs and pace
of the client while remaining faithful to the vision of the structure as described here in
order to achieve maximum effective results.
For a financial analysis of the revenue that flowed to Smith & Jones from the
ABC culture transformation, please contact me for the paper Culture Transformation
Stages Revenue Analysis.
Tommy Thomas, PhD, Chief Executive Officer
Opposite Strengths Licensing LLC
Cell: +1.512.327.2656
Email: Tommy@OppositeStrengths.com
LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/DrTommyThomas
Web: www.OppositeStrengths.com