Activate a company's new culture - using CliftonStrengths® to bring focus to a large-scale strategy brainstorm

Ordinarily, we use CliftonStrengths® in communications coaching. But on occasion, we receive extraordinary projects.

One of our clients came for media training but saw the enormous potential of CliftonStrengths® to support him in shaping the culture in his entire organisation. He engaged us to run a large-scale internal communications and strategy program.

He wanted to bring his senior leadership team together to chart a new course for his organization, including creating a conducive, productive atmosphere for his staff.

Working with this brief, and within the limitations of his staff's availability, we created a two half-day program, first for his two dozen or so senior leaders before bringing together almost 100 of the C-1s and C-2s. Young, high potential staff were also invited.

Creating a goal or a new direction or a new culture for his organization had to start with the senior leadership team. Team dynamics are an essential component if the new direction is to be cascaded successfully to the many other hundreds of people in the organization.

I spent the first half day taking participants through their Talent Themes, as well as team building exercises and personal sharing. This foundational set of exercises helped the team develop their self-awareness and self-acceptance (and acceptance of others).

The second half-day built on this. I grouped participants according to certain Talent Themes to help them play to their strengths as they worked on the new strategic direction.

For example:

• Futuristic participants were grouped to share their visions for the organization, and to synthesize various ideas into an attainable goal.
• Context participants were invited to play to their strengths by identifying key learnings to understand the "why" of the culture refresh and to avoid past mistakes.
• Belief participants were invited to set moral and ethical limits, standards, and guard rails.
• Deliberative participants were invited to identify key risks the organization should avoid as well as risks in the new strategy.

...and so on. With almost 100 participants and their CliftonStrengths® reports to work with, it was a very substantial effort and we ended up with around 20 groups. Of course, every participant could have conceivably contributed to every other group. Talent Themes are propensities to think, talk, relate and act in certain ways - not monopolies. But they allowed participants to name and claim their talents and to contribute where they could contribute best.

After their discussions concluded, the entire cohort then moved through the ballroom from one group to the next to learn what their colleagues had come up with.

The final step was to use AI to synthesize all of these ideas into the hoped-for new strategy, goals, and culture.

Of course, the learning didn't end there. The new culture code was cascaded to colleagues at a subsequent townhall meeting.

But it's exciting to think where this might head. The next step is for participants to keep playing to their strengths and to continue to fine-tune and nurture the culture they had seeded.