change

Culture Change through
Genuine Listening
Paul Ballman
Head of Leadership
Development, Vodafone
If the CEO and HRD had invited me in to help them change the
culture, I am sure they would have said that they needed a culture
which empowered people to be customer-centric, yet cost efficient.
Not exactly an unusual desire, but one that was particularly salient
for this business. I say “If” because that wasn’t the task that they
gave me, instead I was brought in to help them build “Britain’s Best
Workplace”. My new boss thought that I would bring my experience
of other amazing workplaces, set a vision for the business, and
then develop a programme to get us there. Instead of doing that,
I decided that my first task was to understand how people saw
the workplace as it was now, so I set upon a path of listening; a lot
of listening. Over a three month period we listened to a thousand
people; a few individually, twice with over 100 people and the
rest of the time in groups of ten. We asked them what would
help make their company Britain’s Best Workplace and what the
roadblocks were.
5 | LPS Quarterly