The Power of an Inside-Out Approach for Organizational Culture Change (vs. Outside-In)

As the CPO, CLO, CHRO, CTO, or other senior leader with a mandate to transform culture in your organization, you have a never-ending menu of choices and approaches to tackle initiatives meant to minimize the turbulence of workplace challenges.

Yet, the latest data we are watching proves that workforce disruptions are not going away anytime soon.

Recent EX predictions show that employee engagement and culture energy is predicted to continue its decline in 2024. Plus, most companies end up spending an average of $2,200 per employee on efforts to improve the culture, but only 30% of CHROs report a good return on that investment for surveys, workshops, and skills training.

With the data looming and so many approaches to train and upskill your people, how can you still take action this year and know which pathway will provide the best ROI, create an upswing towards sustainable improvement, and help transform your workplace culture?

At Active Choices, Inc., we’ve spent the last 22 years working with clients, studying culture change, and developing best practices and our methodology.

What we’ve found is that true culture change has nothing to do with strengths assessments, frameworks for feedback, or a 90-minute workshop on emotional intelligence. We call this an ‘outside-in’ approach, and the majority of the time it doesn’t create sustained behavior change or actual culture transformation. ?

True culture transformation has everything to do with an ‘inside-out’ approach: how your employees are showing up every single day in the workplace, and the intentions and energy they embody. We call this Intentional Energetic Presence?, and with awareness of this quality, employees are able to quickly gain perspective and take accountability and ownership of how they show up for themselves and for others.

If you are looking for solutions in 2024 that include more skills training, policy changes, meetings, or other methods of trying to solve a problem that is not actually clear, these are all warning signs of an outside-in approach.?

Without addressing the inner energy, accountability, and purpose of your workforce, you’ll continue to spend money, time, and mental bandwidth on efforts and resources that greatly miss the mark, continue the cycle of churn, and potentially create more harm than good.

At ACI, we are committed to the inside-out approach to ensure that you are solving the right leadership and culture problems, and so you and your people can embody the mindset, energy, and intentions needed to create sustainable change — at every level in the organization.?

Are you ready to try an inside-out approach? Here are some options to get started:

• Executive Sessions: Join us for an upcoming forum to learn more about this topic and how to change the way you think about culture optimization. View and RSVP for upcoming sessions for senior leaders and executives here.??
• Training and Certification Pathways: For leaders and organizations that are looking to take a holistic, enterprise-wide approach to becoming a Certified Positive Energy Workplace, we offer proven training track solutions. Explore details here.
• Consulting and Co-Creation: If you'd like to book a custom session for your organization or discuss other ways we can support you, please contact me directly via direct message or on our site. We're happy to explore the best path forward together.

Active Choices, Inc. is a boutique consulting, coaching, and training firm devoted to creating sustainable and authentic Positive Energy Workplaces since 2002. Anese Cavanaugh is the author of Contagious Culture (McGraw-Hill, 2015), Contagious You (McGraw-Hill, 2019), and The Leader You Will Be: An Invitation (ACI, 2018).

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