Senate shj
  • Story
  • People
  • Expertise
  • Perspectives
  • Find us
  • Work with us
  • AU
  • NZ
Senate shj
  • Story
  • People
  • Expertise
  • Perspectives
  • Work with us
  • Follow us on LinkedIn
  • Follow us on Twitter AUAU
  • Follow us on Twitter NZNZ
  • Find us

We started with one question: What matters now?

Perspectives
SenateSHJ > Perspectives » We started with one question: What matters now?

In the first of two articles, Brendon O’Connor shares his perspective on what defining a strong culture has meant for SenateSHJ and how this can drive everything you do.

In sport you are either winning or learning. And like many organisations, at SenateSHJ we are happiest when doing both.

Last week we were chuffed to be named best mid-sized firm in PRovoke Media’s Best Agencies to Work For in Asia-Pacific 2021. It’s a win for our people. And we have also reflected on the learning: which is about culture and what goes into building a strong one.

We have been working hard to create a strong and well-defined sense of who we are and what we are about. This is something we often work with clients on of course, and we have experienced the same demands achieving a result can take.

Also drawing on observations from our work with clients, we were guided by three beliefs.

First, we could see the importance of culture in a crisis. We provide reputation, change and communications advice and often in crisis situations. Invariably you see that whatever the crisis, the culture of the organisation plays a central role in how it begins and is resolved.

Second, we saw a world in chaos, made more obvious by COVID-19. We embraced the reality that unpredictable environments are the norm and no longer new.

Third, has been the shift in stakeholder expectations. From customers to employees, to shareholders, expectations have moved beyond traditional boundaries. Products and profit are no longer enough.

How does your organisation treat suppliers? How does it care for its employees? What’s its impact on the environment? How is it contributing to society? What is its diversity profile?

We reduced this down to a simple question: What matters now?

The answer we found was culture.

Culture is about who we are. It is how we act, do and say things and make decisions big and small. And because it is so central, creating and sustaining the culture you want is critical to building trust, reputation, brand and the value employees place on you.

For us culture is about two things. Values and purpose. We have done a lot of work on the former over a couple of years and are still refining the latter.

Our values are: ‘grounded, energised, restless, united’. These infuse everything we do. The work the team did in establishing our values was outstanding, and is matched by their commitment to bringing these values to life every day.

They have helped in winning this recent award. But for us the real prize is being able to attract and keep top-class people who believe in our values and are motivated by our purpose.

The other half of the equation has been defining our purpose. We have put 18 months into this, and we are seeing the results. I’ll summarise this work in a following article.

 

This story was shared by

Brendon Edit 1

Brendon O'Connor

Group Managing Director Auckland +64 21 688 312 [email protected]

More perspectives

Embracing emergent thinking Read more

Find similar stories

Thought leadership Stakeholder Corporate

Share this story

Looking for a new Perspective?
Sign up to our newsletter here.
Join the conversation Follow us on Twitter AUAU Follow us on Twitter NZNZ Follow us on LinkedIn

Subscribe

* All fields are required
Loading

Thanks for subscribing!

We've sent you an email to confirm your details.

Want to change your preferences?

You're already subscribed! Please get in touch at [email protected] if you have a query.

Oops, something went wrong, please try again. Let us know at [email protected] if you have an issue

Our story

  • Awards
  • Network

People

  • SenateSHJ team
  • Australia
  • New Zealand

Expertise

  • Reputation
  • Engagement
  • Change
  • Government
  • Financial
  • Digital
  • Capability
  • ESG and Sustainability
  • Insights
 
  • Corporate
  • Public sector
  • Energy
  • Health
  • Resources

Perspectives

  • The Togetherness Index 2021
  • Reputation Reality
  • Four Rooms of Change®
  • Missing Persons Advocacy Network
  • All stories

SenateSHJ

  • Find us
  • Work with us
  • Kamber
Senate SHJ

Senate Communications Ltd and Scaffidi Hugh-Jones Pty Ltd (ACN 126 085 952) are two separate companies trading as SenateSHJ.

© SenateSHJ 2023