Culture

To become a great place to work, you must begin with a clear picture of where you are today. What are the behaviors, systems, and symbols at work in your organization? What messages are they sending? And is that what you and your leadership intend. A cultural audit helps you understand where you are today and lays the foundation for creating the desired cultural change.

To become a great place to work, you must begin with a clear picture of where you are today. What are the behaviors, systems, and symbols at work in your organization? What messages are they sending? And is that what you and your leadership intends. A cultural audit helps you understand where you are today and lays the foundation for creating the desired cultural change.

An organization’s culture, the unwritten rules of “how we do things around here” is a powerful force in shaping employees’ behavior and engagement. Sometimes those messages are conscious and intended, sometimes they are not. Getting to the root of what your organization is communicating to your employees is the first step to driving change. What elements of your culture are creating high performance? What aspects of your culture are hindering your people’s performance and engagement? A cultural audit helps answer those questions.

Crosby Consulting can provide you with the insights gleaned from an independent review of your culture and messaging. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods, Michelle can “hold up the mirror” to help you see what your culture is saying to your people and how it is impacting your employment brand and the experience of working in your company in both good ways and bad. With that information in hand, a culture change plan can be developed and implemented.

Engaged employees bring their best to work every day — they give their full discretionary effort, not just the minimum required. They are happy, satisfied, motivated, and committed. What organization does not want that? What organization would tolerate the opposite? Employee engagement results in demonstrable benefits to the bottom-line in terms of customer satisfaction and financial performance. Creating a culture that engages your employees and brings out their best every day is not just good for people, it is also good for business.

Engaged employees bring their best to work every day — they give their full discretionary effort, not just the minimum required. They are happy, satisfied, motivated, and committed. What organization does not want that? What organization would tolerate the opposite? Employee engagement results in demonstrable benefits to the bottom-line in terms of customer satisfaction and financial performance. Creating a culture that engages your employees and brings out their best every day is not just good for people, it is also good for business.

Engagement produces excellence. Disengagement produces destruction. Employee engagement can be measured and it can be improved. Organizations need to start with a clear picture of their employee’s level of engagement as well as the key drivers of engagement in their company based on data collected and analyzed via well-designed survey instruments. Then, detailed action plans and processes can be put in place to help bring about the desired change.

Michelle has over two decades of experience working with dozens of organizations to understand their employee engagement and how to drive the desired culture change. In addition, she has analyzed the linkages between engagement, customer satisfaction and financial performance to help organizations understand the service-profit chain at work in their organization and how positively impacting employee engagement produces positive changes to turnover, customer loyalty, and financial performance. She brings a unique blend of sophisticated research methodology, based on her background as an industrial/organizational psychologist, combined with her practical, results oriented focus from many years as a practitioner.

All organizational change is, fundamentally, culture change. To be effective and to have the desired impact, the human elements of any change initiative must be taken into account. Most failures in new program launches, technology implementations, mergers and acquisitions, and new business strategies are due to the leaders failing to recognize the importance of supporting cultural change and communication.

All organizational change is, fundamentally, culture change. To be effective and to have the desired impact, the human elements of any change initiative must be taken into account. Most failures in new program launches, technology implementations, mergers and acquisitions, and new business strategies are due to the leaders failing to recognize the importance of supporting cultural change and communication.

Michelle has the led the change management and communication components of numerous global initiatives for many different organizations, ranging from program launches to technology implementations to full cultural transformations requiring people to think and act differently at all levels of the organization. Because she understands both the psychology of culture change along with the practical realities of how things get done in organizations, Michelle can help you plan and execute the change management and communication activities necessary to support your new cultural direction.

A special and particularly important aspect of culture is team cohesiveness and effectiveness. High-performing teams that operate from a base of trust, with shared goals, clear accountabilities, and established norms, deliver exceptional results. But effective team behaviors are often the exception rather than the rule. Like most things in life, to have an effective team, you need to work at it.

A special and particularly important aspect of culture is team cohesiveness and effectiveness. High-performing teams that operate from a base of trust, with shared goals, clear accountabilities, and established norms, deliver exceptional results. But effective team behaviors are often the exception rather than the rule. Like most things in life, to have an effective team, you need to work at it.

Team effectiveness starts with team members understanding themselves and each other. Team members need first to trust one another and this simple basic contract is broken in many work teams. In addition, teams need to be willing to commit to decisions, engage in constructive conflict, be held accountable for their performance and focus on the shared goal. Many groups need assistance to work through these challenging issues to emerge on the other side as a high performing work team. The value gained from increasing the effective performance of executive teams cannot be overstated and the damage that comes from team dysfunction at the senior most levels of organizations is far reaching.

Michelle has helped many teams achieve better results through first understanding each other and changing the team dynamic by building trust and redefining group norms, while clarifying goals, accountabilities and commitments. Whether the forum is a one-day off-site or a longer-term engagement, Michelle can help you better understand your current team dynamic and work with you and your team to enhance your relationships, performance, and effectiveness.

Organizations that focus on the customer first and create true customer loyalty that goes beyond mere satisfaction derive great benefits in terms of repeat business and superior financial performance. Front-line, customer-facing employees play a critical role in creating a great service experience. Building a culture of service requires investment in the hiring, training, and rewarding of employees and ensuring organizational alignment around the customer service mission.

Organizations that focus on the customer first and create true customer loyalty that goes beyond mere satisfaction derive great benefits in terms of repeat business and superior financial performance. Front-line, customer-facing employees play a critical role in creating a great service experience. Building a culture of service requires investment in the hiring, training, and rewarding of employees and ensuring organizational alignment around the customer service mission.

Service cultures put the customer first with clarity of purpose, mission and messaging. The service experience itself — the interaction between the customer and the employee — is a critical component. Your brand and service reputation are built one interaction at a time. That means that having the right people interacting with your customers is critical to business success. To build a service culture, you need to focus on hiring, onboarding, training, developing and rewarding the right behaviors.

Michelle has extensive experience working with numerous customer-facing organizations to define and build a service culture through a multi-pronged approach focused on recruiting, selection, training and development, communication, rewards, and recognition. Her experience includes work with retailers, hotels, restaurants, utilities, telecommunications, financial services, and consumer goods organizations to transform the service mindset and, therefore, the resulting service experience at all organizational levels.