Discovery is always the bit people roll their eyes at.
They want to get to the “good stuff”. Quickly.
The amazing strategy, the flashy launch, the shiny new things that will make their culture sing.
But for all that to happen… you have to let me in first. And that’s what discovery is for.
It is an investment that pays off tenfold down the line by giving us time to challenge assumptions, make sure we’re focusing on the right things (not just what we’d like to do), and to build rapport and trust with the team who will be bringing this culture to life.
I don’t have a standard discovery approach or good reason – every culture and business is different – but this stage usually involves:
Analysis:
Combing through people surveys, reading Glassdoor grudges, and looking externally at what competitors are doing.
Some light anthropology:
Observing your team on their home turf. Everything from how your reception area is set up to how fast people are walking tells me so much about a culture, even before I’ve had those first conversations.
Befriending the influencers:
The internal champions and skeptics who will be a deciding factor in whether culture change is accepted by the rest of the organisation.
My model is anti-consulting.
The output of all this is not some 300-page deck that’s presented back to you at an overly long meeting, before never being looked at again.
It’s insights, picked out and prioritised in partnership. Start as you mean to go on and all that.
The idea that a Discovery phase adds time is a misnomer. It’s not just collecting data. It’s building the relationships and mutual understanding that allows what follows to move faster and go deeper – to create change that sticks.
It saves time.
Sounds like the “good stuff” to me.