How an unexpected approach got a state-owned firm to focus on building a culture of learning.
Adrien Clavier is a consultant in organizational development. He works at Sykehuspartner, a state-owned firm that provides shared services for hospitals in Norway. His job is to develop a culture for continuous learning and improvement in the organization.
Since 2016 Adrien has been working with Soul.com on building a culture of learning. I got to ask him about his unexpected approach to get a state-owned firm to focus on building a culture of learning. Here is his story:
A lot of energy in our organisation got wasted
“Six years ago, I was employed at Sykehuspartner as a lean consultant. My job at the time was to guide the organisation to work through continuous improvement. I had no experience and got trained on the job. I learned to work with Lean tools and we got our first results.
After three years, I realized that at the surface things got better, but our culture had not changed. A lot of energy got wasted in complaining and pointing at others. I realised co-workers felt disengaged. I started seeing that the real challenge was enabling them to take charge of their own situation, instead of us doing it for them.”
How would the management react?
“This new focus point gradually became clear: humans instead of tools. But how would we do that? And how could I get others to act with me in the same direction? From my own experience, I knew that focussing on creating unity and trust makes an enormous difference. I informally experimented with different ways of doing this and at some point asked soul.com to assist me. Together with Martijn (Martijn Kersten, consultant at Soul.com), we eventually made a course on creating a culture of learning. In this course we combined all I had learned through this process.
“Although it was not at all what they had expected, the management was fascinated!”
It took quite some courage to walk into the boardroom and show it to our managers. I was asked to prepare a training and focus on the tools. Now I talked about reducing backbiting and complaining. About listening to others and reflecting on our actions. I felt quite alone back then and was challenged to get out of my comfort zone. But it worked out just fine. Although it was not at all what they had expected, the management was fascinated!”
Martijn did nothing for us
“I find it so impressive that Martijn has done nothing for us. I mean, he didn’t jump in and fixed things.
Instead, he has been patiently listening, helping us to formulate what our next step would be, collaborating with us and pushing us a little when needed. He had faith that we could do it ourselves. The trust I felt from Martijn and the vision we shared gave me the much needed confidence. What we are left with is the capacity to do it ourselves.
“What we are left with is the capacity to do it ourselves.”
The course we developed together consists of 5 meetings of 2,5 hours, making it possible to practice between the meetings and reflect together after. The main focus is building the capacity to have meaningful conversations. These conversations do not necessarily have to take place within the company. If you learn to converse with your neighbour in an uplifting and honest manner, it will be easier to do the same with your colleague.
Somehow it is not part of our culture to accompany people. Instead, we tend to tell people and check if actions are done. But we don’t look into what actually has been done and what has happened. We don’t create the space to reflect. Our emphasis on meaningful conversations was all about creating a culture of learning to act, reflect and consult together.”
Reading our own reality
“The course had a great effect on inspiring people and energising co-workers to make changes. But it proved still challenging for many to make changes at their workplace on their own. During our regular consult sessions, Martijn would help us read our own reality. With simple questions we would reflect on what we had done, what we observed, what the next step could be and what we eventually decided to do.
That’s how eight months ago, we decided to see how we could bring several people together in small groups. In which they could learn together from every step they would take. These learning groups turned out to create the necessary room for personal initiative. They also gave the space to reflect on these initiatives and to create the conditions to become the source of learning and progress for the entire organization.”
“It probably would have been easier to employ a handful of people to do the job for everybody else.”
It wasn’t all that easy
“It probably would have been easier to employ a handful of people to do the job for everybody else. But it was my wish to see a deeper change in our company. Changing the way that people interact, think and act in a greater context. To get the entire organisation to flourish and be meaningful out of its own volition and action.
I felt lucky to be accompanied by Soul.com, who are at the forefront of learning. We profited from their experience, trust and generosity. I’ve met consultants who speak about collaboration while encouraging competition in a company. In Soul we found a partner that practices what it preaches and that embodies the qualities that they try to awaken in others.”
Webinar with Adrien
Every month, Soul.com gives people the opportunity to come together in a webinar, to explore themes relevant to bringing positive change at the workplace. This space is called “Change Your Workplace”. In September 2018 the guest for the webinar was Adrien. The subject: How do we continuously improve?
View the webinar here
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