We’re mere days into 2024, and leaders across sectors and industries are bracing for challenges and tough choices in the months to come. Leaders who know how to use the power of culture will feel the buoyancy of sustained employee trust and happiness. While you were (hopefully) getting some R&R during the last week of 2023, Jonathan Roberts, James McQuivey, and I dropped a video about employee actualization, explaining how initiatives that address well-being, belonging, and cultural fit have an amplifying effect on the employee experience (EX) compared to initiatives created in separate, siloed disciplines.

The actualization model is just one of the many tools Forrester clients can access to build resiliency and enhancements into their cultures, within teams or orgwide. Here are three that are applicable to any leader in any organization:

The Four Characteristics Of Culture

This simple tool has been even more popular than we hoped; clients across sectors, and at varying levels of seniority, are ritualizing filling out the four characteristics of culture with their teams. This framework is the antithesis of complicated consulting playbooks. Read the report, and you’ll have what you need to run your own session, or bring me in as the objective third party to ensure that discussion stays on the rails!

The Culture Energy Assessment

Culture energy is a role-agnostic model that gauges a firm’s ability to adopt and sustain culture modes, such as innovation, creativity, or customer obsession. The assessment reveals a foundation of EX survey items that are common across organizations. I can help you make connections between your existing EX data and Forrester’s Culture Energy Model, rather than insisting that you start from scratch! Many clients use the Culture Energy Model to prioritize aspects of the culture to improve based on strategic objectives.

Forrester’s Culture Change Cycle

This tool is applicable whether you are improving culture on the front lines or maintaining culture during a merger. Not a Forrester client? Here’s a sneak peek: Based on academic research and hundreds of case studies, we know that your high-level culture change checklist must include the following:

  • Root culture change in strategic objectives.
  • Articulate a shared purpose.
  • Target behavioral norms for change.
  • Align rituals and artifacts.
  • Model intended culture.
  • Empathize, educate, and encourage.

Great Culture Leadership Starts Here

This year, we’ll continue to add to the culture energy and actualization resources, starting with a systems thinking guide and a dive into the characteristics of AI culture (which I’ll reveal at CX North America 2024). Already an AI culture expert? Reach out to participate in the research. Just trying to be the best leader you can be? Schedule a guidance session with me now to chart a path to EX buoyancy!