How might we unleash the potential of the world’s largest conservation organization to create a world where humans live in harmony with nature?
CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION
Over the course of two years, I partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to co-design a cultural transformation project that radically changed the way the organization approaches its mission.
A World of Change Requires
New Ways of Working
As the world’s largest conservation organization, the World Wildlife Fund recognized that it’s nation-based federation of organizations needed to change if it was to be effective at developing solutions for the global climate crisis. In light of this revelation, network leaders and senior management came together to design a new organizational structure around impact-oriented communities of practice: climate and energy, food, finance, forests, freshwater, governance, markets, oceans and wildlife.
These new structural changes would mean that people from different offices and backgrounds would have to work together in new ways for the first time. With this change came the recognition that the organization needed to transform its culture if it was to successfully live out its mission.
Fostering Innovation Within the WWF Network
In the wake of this organizational restructure, I joined a team of external facilitators that was tasked with nurturing innovation within and across the organization. Our team played a unique role as outsiders working inside the organization to move things forward.
In partnership with the head of People Development, we gathered dozens of WWF's leading change makers from across the global network and launched a grassroots movement to bring the organizations new mantra, "Together Possible", to life.
Over the course of several months, we built an engaged online community of “pandapreneurs” who took part in co-creating and participating in interventions that were designed to catalyze innovation and new ways of working across the global practices.
During this initial phase, we prototyped virtual conferences to accelerate the sharing of best practices, hosted virtual workshops on design thinking, ran case clinics to nurture peer learning and created a weekly touchpoint where intrepraneurs within the organization could share lessons learned, celebrate wins and generate new ideas.
We also introduced the network to virtual collaboration tools and platforms like Zoom, Slack and Google Drive, which helped promote open innovation and a culture of accessibility within the organisation. Through this phase, the network became much more adept at learning through virtual formats and experimenting with new ways of working towards their mission.
The Cultural Imperative
Building upon this initial success, I partnered with the People Development team to host a 2-day virtual culture workshop that convened network changemakers and decision makers to explore the current and desired state of culture within the network.
During this workshop, we determined that the organisation didn’t just need a community of innovators to achieve its mission: it needed a new culture of innovation. More than that, it needed to become well versed in four new ways of working that would act as the foundation of its new culture: listening deeply, collaborating openly, innovating fearlessly and striving for impact.
After the workshop, we prototyped the organization’s first culture deck as an artifact that we used to socialize the culture change initiative and the new ways of working.
Defining the New Ways of Working
Strive for Impact
I am results driven. Everything I do, the way I think, plan and implement is driven by a relentless search for impact.
Listen Deeply
I go beyond my point of view and strive to see the bigger picture from different perspectives. I stay curious and listen deeply to what others have to say.
Collaborate Openly
I’m a global citizen working for a living planet. I am constantly thinking of how with others, together, we can be more impactful. I work across boundaries, openly ask for help and share what I know, both internally and externally.
Innovate Fearlessly
I take risks to find better solutions. I measure progress and learn from mistakes. I share both success and failures. I encourage others to do the same.
Nurturing Culture Change
In the wake of the culture workshop, I worked with the People Development team to convene key leaders from across the organization on a bi-weekly basis to build coherence around the new mandate to shift culture and begin to nurture these new ways of working within the network.
With this group, we began to explore how the new ways of working were already showing up in their existing work and explored opportunities to create interventions that would embed these behaviours across the organisation.
Together, we established and equipped a global community of changemakers in the WWF network with the tools, skills and mindsets needed to drive culture change from where they were positioned, effectively defining and embedding the four new ways of working within all communications, training and employer branding collateral across the organisation.
Impact to Date
In collaboration with multiple internal teams, I brought in an external consultancy to help manage the creation of a culture book for the organization. During this project, I co-authored and edited an 88 page handbook and employee guide that included case studies, tools and reflection prompts for living out the “Together Possible” mission, which is currently being used to train staff across the organization.
As a result of my work with WWF, the four ways of working have been thoroughly institutionalized and embedded across the WWF network. In the time since our work together, WWF has changed the title of its Human Resources officers to heads of People & Culture, noting their value for the role that culture plays in achieving its organisational mission.
Skills Required
Through this project, I relied on a host of different skills, methodologies and approaches to help move the work forward:
Community Management
Copywriting
Graphic Design
Change Management
Event Design
Facilitation
Brand Strategy
Social Movement Theory
Design Thinking
Agile Project Management