Your team has been hired as a Culture Transformation Consulting Group for a large organization facing significant challenges:
Operating as a hybrid organization with inconsistent practices
Some departments have toxic environments while others have supportive management
Generally low psychological safety across the organization
Rigid hierarchical structure limiting communication and innovation
High turnover among creative and early-career employees
Lack of innovation and siloed thinking between departments
Instructions
Part 1: Individual Problem Diagnosis
For this first deliverable, each team member will conduct an individual analysis focusing on TWO aspects of the organizational cultural problem. This analysis will later inform your team’s comprehensive transformation plan.
Step 1: Select one of the following roles based on your interests and strengths:
OB Analyst: Maps toxic behaviors to organizational structure and identifies key characteristics of structures supporting inclusive and innovative cultures
Human Capital Strategist: Designs motivational strategies to address engagement issues
Inclusive and Innovative Cultures Consultant: Addresses bias and inclusion and their impact on innovation
Change Manager: Analyzes readiness for change and potential resistance points
Leadership Advisor: Evaluates leadership styles and follower dynamics affecting organizational culture
Step 2: Diagnose the Problem from your role perspective:
Identifying specific structural and cultural elements contributing to the toxic environment
Applying at least two organizational behavior concepts (e.g., group dynamics, organizational structure, leadership-follower relations, motivation theory)
Assessing how stereotype threat, and power dynamics may be affecting inclusion, creativity, and employee engagement
Providing specific examples of how these issues manifest in hybrid work environments
Step 3: Prepare a analysis document that includes:
Introduction to your role and focus area
Diagnosis of key problems using organizational behavior concepts
Recommendations for your Team Humanistic Cultural Transformation Plan:
Recommend changes to organizational structure that promote agility, cross-functional collaboration, and innovation (e.g., shift to a team-based or matrix structure or other alternatives).
Integrate humanistic management principles such as dignity, trust, ethical leadership, and well-being and recommend actions to address at least two key problems identified by your team.
Recommend key tech tools to implement for successful plan implementation.
References to at least three scholarly sources that inform your analysis
This scenario asks your consulting team to diagnose and address a large organization’s culture problems — hybrid inconsistency, toxic pockets, low psychological safety, rigid hierarchy, high creative/early-career turnover, and silos. The assignment starts with an individual problem diagnosis. Diagnose root causes and propose evidence-based change.
Key takeaways
- Diagnose the root causes behind the surface symptoms.
- Low psychological safety underlies turnover and lack of innovation.
- Rigid hierarchy and silos block communication and collaboration.
- Propose evidence-based culture-change strategies.
- Ground it in organizational-culture and change theory.
Diagnose the problems
Analyze the symptoms and identify root causes: low psychological safety (people fear speaking up) drives disengagement and turnover; rigid hierarchy and silos block communication and innovation; inconsistent hybrid practices and toxic pockets of management create unequal, unhealthy experiences. Connect the symptoms to these underlying causes.
Apply theory
Ground the diagnosis in organizational-culture concepts (Schein’s levels of culture, psychological safety — Edmondson) and change models (Kotter, Lewin).
Recommend change
Propose evidence-based strategies: building psychological safety, leadership development to fix toxic management, consistent hybrid norms, flattening communication, cross-functional collaboration, and retention initiatives for creative/early-career staff.
Format
Complete the individual diagnosis clearly and cite sources.
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