Janis Strods, Co-Founder, COO at Edurio
Culture
Even the littlest of things, how you behave and lead your school, shapes your culture. For example, do you respond to emails after dinner or before breakfast? Does your leadership team meet often? How do schools interact with each other? Do you work on that document for a few more hours or get it sent as soon you can?
There are no correct answers to these "how we do things around here” questions, but each organisation will have its own unwritten rules.
These principles and behaviours are what make up organisational culture, and they affect every part of the company. They shape the wellbeing and motivation of your staff. "The people who work for you will never forget how it felt to work here, or the kind of people they became as a result”, even as they forget the termly ups and downs, writes Ben Horowitz in What You Do Is Who You Are.
A strong culture also contributes to an organisation's financial effectiveness. According to McKinsey and Company, organisations with top quartile cultures post a 60% higher return to their shareholders than average companies (and 200% higher than those with bottom quartile cultures).
Having a reliable culture as a stabilising force is particularly important during change processes. McKinsey research shows that 70% of failed transformations are due to culture-related issues. Unlocking Shareholder Value, a 1999 report by KPMG, suggests that mergers and acquisitions were "26% more likely than average to be successful if they focused on resolving cultural issues, and those acquirers who left cultural issues until the post-deal period severely hindered their chance of deal success”.
Culture in growing school trusts
The same lessons can be applied to school trusts. These large organisations already contain multitudes — the Trust central team and each school is likely to have their take on "how we do things around here”. However, it is important to know the core behaviours to rally around to provide much-needed stability during change.
The practical implications of strong organisational culture during periods of growth will differ depending on the type of growth.
Suppose a large Trust takes on a single school or merges with a small Trust. In that case, the practical challenges will gravitate towards ensuring the new school or schools adapt to the larger culture without feeling marginalised. If a small Trust expands, or there's a merger between two similarly sized Trusts, the outcome is likely to be a significant change to the organisation culture — something that should not be left to luck alone.
From speaking with Trusts going through mergers, culture-driven growth pains can be a real problem. The consequences of ignoring culture during periods of growth range from losing key members of your team (because they haven't been prepared to work in a way they're not familiar with), to losing track of the Trust vision and guiding principles that could have helped in a period of low stability.
Cultural due diligence
To address these practical concerns, Edurio has created a playbook for carrying out cultural due diligence during school trust mergers and growth to address these practical concerns.
We recommend that trusts carry out cultural due diligence with the goal of identifying the key commonalities and differences in the organisational cultures. As recommended by McKinsey, cultural due diligence should be done alongside the legal and financial diligence during the merger process.
A cultural due diligence process should consist of three distinct steps.
- Define your trust's culture. You need a clear understanding of where you are at this point before you draw any conclusions about similarities and differences. We recommend carrying out a staff survey, asking staff to reflect on the existing culture or the desired culture of the trust. This dataset should be analysed in a central team workshop — we provide both sample questions and a script for the workshop in the playbook.
- Understand the culture of schools joining your trust. We recommend setting aside time with the other organisation's leadership team for asking deliberate questions about their culture. You might also consider asking more focused questions in a survey to find out how your trust's cultural values are perceived in the other organisation. These steps will give you an insight into both the qualities of the culture and the processes the other organisation is using for maintaining the culture.
- Finally, compare the two cultures. After you have a clearly defined idea of your own culture and have an understanding of the other trust's culture, it is time for identifying risks and opportunities. Answering questions like "Are there any overlapping or synergistic values?” and "Does the other trust have any schools that are a cultural mismatch?” and visualising the survey data will help you identify actionable insights that you can share with your staff and deal with proactively.
Learn more about how Edurio can help you unlock stakeholder feedback for staff and pupil wellbeing and trust culture: home.edurio.com/insights
The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
