Background
Agile is something of a watchword in organisations at the moment. But few, if any, businesses apply agile methodology to culture. Innovation consultancy ?What If! is out to change that and, in a project with UK-based Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), has demonstrated not only that agile can be used in cultural transformation but that it can more effectively embed change than many other approaches. LBG brought ?What If! in to help it embed a change mindset and behavioural expectations across its 70,000 plus workforce. This was necessary if the bank were to deliver its three-year strategy to transform for success in the digital world. LBG wanted colleagues to live its values and to use 12 behaviours as a guiding force as they conducted business every day.
Approach
In a pilot exercise ?What If! trained 12 champions in what it branded Behavioural Experiments (BE), where they picked an everyday frustration and applied one of LBG’s behaviours to come up with hundreds of ideas. From this, they chose one idea and experimented with it, before pivoting, picking a new behaviour and devising a new experiment.
"Demonstrating true client centricity in ensuring the movement is sustainable without its involvement"
Outcome
The programme was rolled out after the pilot proved successful and, as of Summer 2019, ?What If! had trained 2,023 BE champions in 154 workshops across the globe, with more than 10,000 colleagues actively experimenting with their behaviours.
The programme has shown impressive results (see Best Business Culture Transformation Initiative: Lloyds Banking Group). But where ?What If! has demonstrated true client centricity is in ensuring the movement is sustainable without its involvement. It created ‘Pauseand-Play’ videos to allow anyone at LBG to kick-start BE and evaluate lessons. It also implemented a BE Newsroom: a team of full-time staff dedicated to uncovering the stories, myths, and legends that will continue to build and support the movement. Plus, it upskilled the LBG Learning team to facilitate and coach BE. A true collaboration.