The other day we took a long walk along a desolate stretch of beach in the moonlight. The full moon lit up the cloudless sky, and we cast large beautiful, detailed shadows across the wet sand of the beach. The images were spectacular!

This experience popped back into my memory while I was facilitating a workshop with the executive management team of a client, who had recently undergone a very successful change of ownership.

Based on the idea that the culture of an organisation is the shadow of its leadership, and Inspired by the exciting new opportunities that the future holds for the company, we spent two days looking at the senior teams’ leadership culture.

The ultimate conclusion we came to, after two days of intense discussion and reflection, was that a new future was only possible when the senior team started to do things differently. The tone for a new culture and ultimately a new future had to start at the top.  While culture has the potential to eat strategy for breakfast, to reset an organisation’s culture, we must start with the senior team’s commitment to leading the culture shift.

If you are in a position of influence in your organisation, ask yourself: “Does our executive team set the leadership tone to enable a future-proof organisation culture that is ready for the 4th Industrial Revolution?”.

This tool has been designed to provide some insight.