Case Study: When Culture Wasn’t Protected, The Charity Folded
A national counselling charity was undergoing a transformation aimed at modernising how it delivered its counselling services. In order to keep up with external competition, the charity needed to introduce new digital tools and ways of working. To support this, the charity’s culture needed to change, too.
Historically, the culture of the organisation had been top-down and didn’t involve much consultation, but it was starting to change for the better. Using a more collaborative approach and implementing changes in an iterative way, leaders were able to build ways of working and behaviours that were more curious and innovative.
Change was no longer being ‘done to’ people: it was something they were invited to shape. The team had begun to adopt more open and service-oriented ways of working.
The values and behaviours that underpinned the culture weren’t codified as part of the transformation plan, and they were dependent on a few key senior leaders. Because culture was so intangible, it was vulnerable when leadership changed.
When pressure mounted, and new styles of working and goals took priority, the culture was the first to go, and the transformation failed soon after.
A Cultural Shift Without The Guardrails
The charity needed to digitise, and during the early phases of the transformation, culture was improving. New tools and services were introduced through small pilots, and teams were involved in shaping the design of those services. Staff who had previously been uncertain became more engaged, and were able to take more ownership of the change happening within their service areas. Teams began solving problems independently, and there was a sense of progress, trust and collaboration.
The charity was transitioning from a passive to a problem-solving culture, and early results were promising for the future of the organisation.
But there was no clear framework for embedding or protecting the emerging behaviours. Culture was shaped quietly through behaviours and working styles, rather than being led, defined or clearly identified by key individuals. The organisation hadn’t codified what kind of culture it was trying to build, or how it would sustain it through future changes. This made it difficult to protect in high pressure environments.
A Leadership Change That Undid the Culture
The charity’s goals required more business-oriented leadership, so the CEO stepped down, and was replaced by an interim leader. Their focus was financial turnaround and aggressive growth.
The change in leadership, and the need to grow quickly, led to a deprioritisation in the behaviours that had allowed the organisation to change. The group of leaders around the CEO were focused on strengthening their own objectives, rather than collaborating to help the organisation grow as a whole.
This new approach was framed as the turnaround needed to keep the organisation running. In doing so, ownership was taken away from internal stakeholders, consultation declined, and a top-down leadership style was re-introduced.
Digital Pressed Ahead, But Culture Lagged Behind.
As the organisation’s focus turned to scaling up delivery and performance, attention to culture slipped. The resulting changes were felt quickly: though everyone was working towards the same unified growth goal, internally teams were fractured and discouraged. This undermined the stability that transformation needed to continue.
The conditions that had enabled innovation weren’t built into the transformation process itself, creating a gap. The behaviours, values and ways of working that made early progress possible, and made people feel included and empowered in the change, weren’t prioritised or protected.
“We stopped thinking about any sort of organizational culture change, stopped thinking about how we work together and how we related to one another, and instead just focused on a more traditional view.”
Reflections
The charity had started to shift in the right direction to allow for a successful transformation to occur. But it wasn’t embedded, it wasn’t protected, and it wasn’t treated as critical to the success of the organisation. That made it vulnerable when the goals of the charity and pace of transformation changed.
This case shows how quickly positive change can be lost, especially when it’s not supported and embedded in an explicit way.
What Other Charities Can Learn
Bringing people along the journey is a great way to create empowerment. In this example, change was rolled out iteratively and the people who were key to the change were invited to co-create and collaborate, which gave them ownership over the outcomes.
Culture needs to be designed and protected. It doesn’t emerge by accident. It has to be actively stewarded and embedded across leadership, systems and behaviours.
Leadership changes are high-risk moments. While culture is built in both ways, leadership has an outsized impact on which goals and behaviours to prioritise. If culture isn’t part of the brief and job description, it will fall off the agenda. Leaders should be surrounded by stakeholders who are invested in and willing to protect the culture.
Focusing just on the digital elements of transformation isn’t enough. Shifting the way the organisation works also requires an investment in the behaviours and norms that support this shift.
External awareness matters. If culture is focused only on internal improvement, and not on adapting to a changing environment, it can create a false sense of progress.