Our Work

When it comes to culture, everybody plays their part. It’s like a web of connections inseparable from one another. We co-create organisation culture together. Yet, so many wait for someone else to change it first. As if they live ‘apart’ from that very same culture.

It’s hard for people to own their part in something they can’t ultimately control. Culture is easy to blame others for and powerful to impact yourself. Many Leaders approach culture change by treating it as an ‘issue of clarity’. Culture becomes a comms exercise. Senior Managers tell people how the culture ‘should’ be and they articulate a set of behaviours everyone ‘should’ demonstrate. This serves as a prescription that is rarely followed.

We all know how people in organisations respond to being told how to be. There is usually positive intent to improve the culture, however the means used (tell and prescribe) typically work against the desired outcome.

The most familiar dynamic to a ‘clarity-based strategy’ of culture change is separation – ‘them and us’. Them up there and us down here.

A blame cycle takes hold and people become more entrenched in the reasons why change can’t happen.

At Martine Cannon, our team address culture as a live inquiry into how we do things here. What you are really asking people to do is sit with the reality that, whilst they participate in the culture creation process personally through how they behave, they can’t actually change it. No ONE can. People find themselves in a paradox; I am in charge but not in control. I am in charge of my own behaviour but I am not in control of the behaviour of the group. A mindset takes hold which sounds like, “how can I be held responsible for a change I can’t ultimately control?” How your people hold this paradox is the crucial factor in culture change success. Most people collapse when they meet this tension of action without control. It goes against our love of control and certainty and leaves us with influence as the only lever to use. Influencing the behaviour of others through your own behaviour, as opposed to telling others how to be.

Culture change for us at Martine Cannon begins with working with what is – the forces that keep things the same – at the same time as working with what you can become. It’s an exciting journey of noticing our collective commitment to change through the small day to day actions that lead to systemic change. It’s fun, creative and spontaneous. It’s the antidote to prescription and control.

We focus on the creativity and fun that being a person of influence (not authority) brings. We support people to become master influencers within their system. In today’s society we can visibly see the power influencers have. Just look at social media influencers to see how fast change can happen, and how far reaching it can be.

“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

We support Senior Managers and Change Champions to work with how to influence at the local level for global impact.

Ultimately, culture is a movement not a mandate.

We provide C-Suite Transformational Coaching, Senior Executive Coaching and Group Coaching at the highest level.

Our leaders hold responsibility for results, performance, culture, team effectiveness, stakeholder relationships, direction, team development, risk management and a great deal more.

Senior Managers who are engaged in the pursuit of mastery in the domain of leadership, continually look for ways they can elevate their own and others performance.

This mastery mindset powerfully unlocks all challenges along the path.

Coaching supports leaders to create unimpeded pathways for performance, their own and others. Allowing them to overcome personal constraints and become more impactful. This newfound freedom improves the quality of their lives and enables them to go beyond possible.

When our leaders find greater levels of internal freedom from what holds them back, they experience the joy and liberation of a life without limits. The natural response to this new freedom is to reach higher.

Coaching lifts the water level of performance, making what once was impossible, possible. Our work delivers unrivalled returns in far reaching and lasting ways. And it is wildly fun.