Building a Culture Inside that Creates Public Trust Outside™
90-Day Culture Quick-Start Program
*Specifically customized for Public Safety groups based on the Human Synergistics 90-Day Culture and Performance Quick Start Program.
You and your staff are doing the best you can under volatile and complex circumstances to serve your communities, while staying alert to whatever comes your way. But the way people experience the culture inside your department has a huge impact on how they approach their jobs and work with the public outside.
The need for good judgment, quick action, and procedural justice can be hampered by the “what’s really expected” culture inside your organization. That’s what makes it so important—and what makes culture the foundation for effective service, public trust, and community support.
We can help engage your department through a customized 90-day blueprint for success. We quantify and connect culture to your top priorities—including building public trust, community engagement, officer wellness, and employee recruitment & retention—to accelerate your desired results.
Our Public Safety Culture Quick-Start Program includes: defining the outcomes and results targeted for improvement, thoroughly assessing organizational culture and climate to understand how they are helping or hindering progress, and using these findings in planning sessions with a leadership and/or change team to create a roadmap for change.
Key Benefits of the Culture Quick-Start Program
What’s Included in the Culture Quick-Start Program
Feedback and Testimonials
FAQs
Key Benefits of the Culture Quick-Start Program
Foster High Engagement Across Your Organization
- Each person, from administrative personnel to the top leader, is invited to be a part of the process and have their voice heard to heighten employee involvement and include every group.
- Build ownership across the organization at all levels by helping employees see where they fit into the process and resulting development plan.
Facilitate Shared Learning and Results
- Build a shared reality of what the current culture is and what department members desire for the ideal culture, using valid and reliable culture tools, while giving staff a common language to speak about their experiences.
- Help everyone understand the “why” behind the current and ideal cultures through thorough qualitative data gathering, such as focus groups, interviews, and staff feedback sessions.
Construct a Custom Plan for Your Organization
- Create a development plan with goals to move from the culture staff experience now to the desired culture.
- Identify tactical action steps to bring these goals into reality and build in accountability mechanisms to keep moving forward.
Refine and repeat a Four-Phase Approach to Performance Improvement
Customize our four-phase approach and enhance the above-mentioned learnings as you refine and expand improvement plans to reach your targeted outcomes/results.
We will checkpoint with you and your planning teams several times within 3-4 months after you’ve adopted your roadmap for change, to help you assess your progress and adjust your plans as needed.
We can also help you implement with additional services within our wheel-house, or make recommendations to other resources for the development needed.
+ Purpose & Engagement
In a meeting with key leaders, we work with them to clarify the purpose, and the outcomes/results targeted for improvement (performance, teamwork, community support, engagement, safety/wellness, etc.) as well as to plan engagement methods and timelines.
We then work with the key leaders to facilitate an organization-wide kickoff (in person or via Zoom) to help people understand the “why,” the “what,” and the “how” – and to sincerely ask for their participation. It also gives people the opportunity to get to meet us so that we can start building a relationship with them that they can trust.
+ Culture & Climate Surveys
We employ the most widely used and thoroughly researched culture survey, along with a complementary climate survey, to generate reliable feedback for planning for change. Human Synergistics’ Organizational Culture Inventory® and Organizational Effectiveness Inventory™ provide a common language and invaluable data on critical aspects of culture and climate, how they’re connected, and how they influence the desired outcomes/results.
We also use the Human Synergistics’ Ideal Organizational Culture Inventory® to identify the ideal culture for the organization in terms of shared values—specifically, the behaviors that members believe would maximize their engagement and ability to serve their communities. maximize performance. Gaps between Ideal Culture and the Current Culture are analyzed to determine if refinements in cultural or organizational expectations are needed.
+ Focus Groups & Interviews
Once the culture survey is completed, individuals and groups participate in facilitated sessions to capture insights (stories, examples, etc.) about the current cultural norms, underlying beliefs, and their impact on outcomes/performance. The patterns identified from this thorough qualitative assessment are analyzed with the surveys, to both validate the survey results and help explain them.
+ Sub Culture & Climate Analysis
Culture and climate results across levels, departments/groups, ethnic groups, gender, and other strata can be generated and compared to understand sub-culture differences, identify and disseminate best practices, and customize development plans. The objective is to understand culture gaps and their impact on outcomes within different levels, groups, and divisions.+ Debriefing & Development Planning
Working with key leaders and a cross-functional planning team (represented by members of each group within the organization), we present your results to you in a way that connects what you want in terms of culture, where you are already meeting that, where the gaps are, and the biggest levers for change.
We then facilitate your discussion to understand how the current culture is helping or hindering your progress. Then you define, in your own words, the shift that you want to make, from the current to the ideal culture.
+ Roadmap & Engagement
We help you develop a roadmap for change that is practical and realistic, and help you engage the organization to share the culture assessment and get feedback on your development plans. After finalizing this, we help you develop a timeline with key actions to make real progress on your culture change efforts and checkpoints to adjust your plans as you go.
“The Culture Project was of the utmost importance to help establish a current baseline and a desired direction forward. This work challenged our personnel to take an honest inventory of our internal environment, provided an opportunity to craft a new beginning, and gave an important voice to those who have been unheard. I am extremely impressed by the initial outcomes, and am grateful for PPA’s thoughtful efforts and consultation throughout the entire project.”
Director of Public Safety
“The results of the surveys and meetings accurately represented our current culture. I could sense a real commitment by Amber and Cathy to understand our organization’s culture. The things we were feeling were put into writing, graphs, and other measurement/assessment tools. That was helpful for all sorts of learners.”
Line Staff Member
They did a fantastic job in making realistic recommendations and solutions to solve what initially seemed to be very complicated and difficult.”
Public Safety Chief
What is the time investment required on the part of top leaders?
Department leaders are typically involved in: one-on-one interviews; a couple of project organizing meetings of 1-2 hours; an all-staff kick-off session of 45 min-1 hour; and facilitated planning events that may range from 8 hours to several days over time, depending on your needs. (A common and useful design involves us partnering with one of your staff to coordinate assessment and improvement planning activities.)
Results are shared with the Leadership Team, the cross-functional planning team, and all who participated in the assessment. Feedback is obtained from all staff, and plans are refined before implementation. Other department members who are part of the cross-functional planning team should count on about 20 hours of participation spread out over this process.
Can the program be expanded with additional custom elements?
Absolutely. Customization options include individual coaching and development sessions with leaders and managers with 360° feedback via Leadership/Impact®, Management/Impact®, or the Life Styles Inventory™. Team-based options include: expanded interviews and focus groups across locations; engagement of larger groups (e.g., company meetings, top 100 leader groups, etc.) in improvement planning; and team building for leadership teams, change teams, as well as other key groups to develop skills and processes that complement and reinforce changes at the individual and organizational levels.
How soon will we see results?
Development plans will be directed toward critical mission and/or priorities like succession planning, building alignment and increasing morale across the organization, or retaining employees. Leading indicators of the outcome(s) targeted typically show improvement in 6-9 months. Some quick wins should be observed, but major changes in outcomes are likely to require 12-18 months (at which time posttest surveys are recommended for evaluation purposes).
What types of organizations are the best fit for the quick-start program?
- Departments and organizations desiring to go beyond simply measuring outcomes like engagement, community support, or inclusion in order to better understand and change the underlying culture and related forces impacting these and other priority outcomes.
- Organizations that value tested, reliable and valid assessment tools and evidence-based approaches to change and development.
- Organizations with leaders who are prepared to commit the time required to apply a disciplined and inclusive approach to drive shared learning and results as a team.
Can the culture quick-start program be used with departments, divisions or locations?
In very large agencies, culture change initiatives can start with one or more important divisions, groups or teams. Plans for improvement are then refined based on a more in-depth understanding of the subculture and climate (as well as of the developmental models and surveys). The initiative can be expanded to other subgroups/teams and ultimately, as progress is demonstrated, throughout the entire organization.
Can the program be customized to address and advance diversity, equity and inclusion?
Should we wait to initiate and implement the culture quick-start program if our organization is working through other significant change efforts?
Periods of change and uncertainty may be the best time to gain a clear understanding of culture and its importance. We can become acutely aware of culture challenges and shortcomings when facing turbulence and managing change. The culture quick-start program will allow leaders to better navigate current challenges by providing a clearer view into the underlying causes, while helping their team construct and refine a development plan to meet these challenges head-on. This will increase the likelihood the organization will improve through their challenges.
What should follow the culture quick-start program to sustain progress?
Consulting options include continuing to work with us or investing in training internal staff so that they can take development to the next level. Subsequent developmental initiatives should focus on the levers for change identified during the quick-start program—potentially involving, for example, additional management and leadership development, structural changes, changes in technologies and the design of jobs, initiatives to improve communication, team development, and new appraisal and reward systems.
Relevant items from the Organizational Effectiveness Inventory® (OEI) can be administered on a pulse basis to periodically monitor the progress being made on the levers selected to promote culture change. The improvement approach should be continued for 24 months before a re-measure using the OEI and the Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®) as a foundation for a second cycle of planning and improvement.