case study (education): Purdue Northwest College of Business

WHY CULTURE CHANGE?

With a new Dean, leadership team, and vision, the college was looking to set aside relics, norms, and behaviors that no longer served. This means re-setting and realigning the college to a new strategic plan, developing common language and behavioral expectations around the college’s culture and ways of working together, and assessing progress along the way.

High-level overview of the multi-year journey

WHAT WE DID

A multi-phased and multi-year strategic culture evolution and transformation partnership grounded in assessment, culture development, structure realignment, and strategic planning. We assessed the current state of the culture, aligned with a newly formed leadership team (and Dean) around what the evolution needed to look like and developed road mapping, action planning, and learning to build on strengths and address areas of opportunity.

Mental-map around the “WHY” behind the culture change

THE CALL FOR CULTURE METHOD IN ACTION

To assess the current culture, we first formed a representative cross-sectional Culture Team. This group helped weighed in on the assessment strategy and providing feedback along the way. We then worked alongside the Dean to develop a connected and inclusive messaging and communications plan kicking off the transformation work and assessment. For this client we conducted interviews to start and planned for a survey later in the process.

The results revealed several strengths including responsibility, care, and knowledge of the impact of work on students; signs of strong inter-team bonds, support, and functioning; mindset of resourcefulness; and shared recognition of need for culture change. We also recognized several growth opportunities such as re-channeling the “why” and “how,” bridging the gap between people and equitable human-centered process, and improving trust and relationship quality to build psychological safety

In accordance with the discoveries from the surveys and interviews, we developed a Culture Blueprint which included Organizational Design and Alignment, an Organizational Roadmap, creating space to listen, slowing down to connect, and establishing accountability, direct feedback, and transparency.

Overview of initial assessment results and areas of action and focus

Call for Culture partnered with the College of Business to implement tactical actions like a values activation plan (Culture Charter) that aligns with their current strategic plan and the remaining components of their Culture Blueprint.

“We felt confident in where our values were landing but didn’t know how to articulate them. Call for Culture helped us confirm those were our values and gave us language on how we share them.”

— Rachel Smith, Dean

KEY TAKEAWAYS THUSFAR

Gain feedback from all employees: Develop and implement surveys and interviews to gather feedback at all levels. This encourages alignment and buy-in.

Develop actionable plans: Use information from the surveys and interviews to develop realistic plans to enact culture change. Memorialize the plan and communicate progress regularly.

Assess senior leadership team aligned: The strength and structure of senior leadership in this case study was especially important to ensure they were organized and empowered to role model the Culture Charter.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Going into our 2nd year of partnership, we are conducting a Culture Survey/Assessment baseline to measure the elements outlined in the Culture Charter to determine a more robust picture of culture actualization and adjustment. Results and action from that survey are expected to be codified in early 2025.