Case
Learning Experiences Design, Culture Design, Facilitation
Leading the Medinfar Culture
A program with life to live more and better Culture, indoors and outdoors.
Culture is not established by decree. It is made, every day
Once upon a time, a Medinfar Culture Charter was born exactly 50 years after the creation of the organization itself, that is, when 2020 was the year.
In this Letter, we proudly describe half a century of varied achievements and sow the seeds for a desired/unwanted change made of new paths and ambitions.
We started from four strategic pillars and three corporate values that resulted from an internal choice, which involved the entire structure of the organization, through the Organizational Climate diagnosis. It was based on these values that we carried out the work within the scope of the Leading the Medinfar Culture program.
Wanting the content of the Culture Charter to leave the paper and the walls of the office and factory, and manifest itself in everything people do every day, in 2019, Way Beyond was challenged by the People Directorate to design a program dedicated to clarifying, deepening and disseminating the Medinfar culture.
Between the initial conversations and the first working session there were strange and fickle times, as there was a particularly contagious and dangerous virus on the loose around the world, always threatening to lock us in our homes again and again, and it took a few months before the bars of Medinfar and Way Beyond aligned again.
Who is who?
It was already October 2021 when this happened: we started, with the top management team, a work with the purpose of deepening their identity, getting to know each other and strengthening the connections between all and, at the same time, contributing to their consolidation as a team that promotes the Medinfar culture.
Between sharing remarkable life stories, discoveries resulting from the *feedback* offered among colleagues and reflection on the current and desired identity for this team, people created a safe and trusting climate, dedicating themselves to the purpose of the session and to being the helmsmen of this "operation" of leading the culture, starting with themselves. The will to create was clear from this session:
Unity, synergy and alignment between all people in *top management*;
An accessible, open, cohesive, transparent, diverse, transversal team;
An open and transparent communication flow that promotes trust;
Clarification and alignment of the vision, purpose and direction for all members of this team, so that they convey it in words and actions to all the different people in the organization;
The creation of rituals that promote and consolidate the relationships between these people and the other teams, thus favoring the creation of a certain organizational culture.
There was therefore much to do. The (pre)occupation with Culture would have to continue its journey! If the top management now had clearer ideas about themselves and what they wanted for culture, it was time to involve more people and, progressively, everyone.
Influencingis good for your health... from Medinfar Culture
The program thus entered a new phase: the People Directorate identified around 70 area and team leaders to prepare them for the mission of spreading the culture.
We called these people "Influencers" and "Influenceresses" and, with them, we co-constructed the program that would help them better understand and translate the strategic pillars and corporate values of the Culture Charter into rituals to know, feel and live the Medinfar culture.
As we don't know how to be, or work, any other way, somewhere in the fall of 2022, we visited the factory (Condeixa-a-Nova) and the offices (Venda Nova) to, through 10 interviews and four focus groups, listen and get to know what some of these Influencers and people from their teams think about the Medinfar Culture, values contained in it, their experiences and ways to do.
Influencers in action
We sought to inspire Influencers to define guiding principles for their role as culture spreaders and tell them how this program would develop.
Empathy, honest communication, transparency/honesty, passion, trust were the principles chosen to support the actions of the Influencers among themselves and with their people.
After the research, on a beautiful late afternoon in November 2022, we all met - top management, People Management, Medinfar Influencers and the Way Beyond team - to launch this second phase of joint work.
We seemed to catch in the air joy and enthusiasm for working together for constructive changes towards common goals and, on top of that, having precisely each and every one of them the power/capacity and responsibility to make them happen!
We seemed to catch in the air joy and enthusiasm for working together for constructive changes towards common goals and, on top of that, having precisely each and every one of them the power/capacity and responsibility to make them happen!
To celebrate this exciting news, nothing like a delicious and lively dinner that ended with a "See you next year! See you now!".
In January 2023, with the Medinfar Influencers distributed in four groups, the journey of exploration of the Culture Charter to design rituals began.
Three mandatory stops - one per week and per Corporate Value. The workshops were composed of 13 to 16 Influencers, with geographical origin and function representative of the diversity existing in the organization. A total of 12 workshops were held.
In all workshops, dynamics were carried out to:
Clarify and strengthen the role of the Influencer, facilitating the development of leadership qualities and skills, communication, feedback, collaboration, among others;
Clarify, deepen and make each of the values of the Culture more active, by defining rituals for their implementation. The proposed dynamics made it possible to find similarities and differences and to clarify what the Influencers understand by each of the corporate values, which facilitated the design of rituals to implement and make the Culture more active.
From the set of rituals designed, Influencers and top management voted for the ones they considered most relevant to each of the values to be implemented with people and teams.
Making culture known, felt and experienced - but what is a ritual anyway?
Once the rituals to be implemented had been designed and chosen, it was time to celebrate Culture and the dedication of all. How? With a hymn, but we'll get to that in a moment....
In this important moment, which was intended to be an informal reflection but also a celebration of joint achievements and motivation to continue the journey with luggage full of new learning, the reunion, conviviality and fun strengthened the union and the collective spirit in relation to the organizational culture in general and to the values and rituals in particular.
Results were shared and the most voted rituals were announced to the Influencers group and top management, who should start their journey.
Soon after, the Influencers were surprised by a peculiar challenge: they should be inspired precisely by the winning rituals and the melody of a widely known Portuguese song and write lyrics and chorus of the hymn celebrating the Culture, grab different musical instruments and tune the vocal cords... And that's how another piece of history was added to Medinfar, having its Influencers built and publicly presented nothing less than the hymn to Medinfar culture, which is already a viral success within the organization!
Long live Medinfar Culture!
It was then time to help the Influencers translate the chosen rituals into concrete behaviors and actions. Thus, between the extended and musical meeting, just arrived in spring, and this other moment, at the beginning of summer, again all the Influencers were challenged to think and explain what they already do with their teams and what they want to do and how, regarding the living and ritualization of the values of the Culture.
To support them in this mission, we got together again and started by presenting a mysterious red-colored folding object called "Medinfar Culture Map" that we gave to each of the participants.
Departure, departure, escape!
Together, we walked through this map that is both an aid to tell your people what has already happened within the scope of the Leading the Medinfar Culture program and a starting point to align and involve your teams around the narrative and actions of this adventure.
In addition to the red map, each Influencer created and took away for themselves and their team an action plan to implement at least one self-chosen ritual and the promise that by the end of 2023 they would put it into action in collaboration with their team.
As well as action plans, we felt that these people also brought courage, enthusiasm and optimism, and we all said goodbye with the good feeling of completing a chapter in a story that still has much to write and tell.
The road to the trilogy
Medinfar, thank you for your trust and enthusiasm!
The notebook for writing the third part of this trilogy is yet to be opened. For now, we give time to conversations to explore possibilities.
With the rituals in action, we know it will be relevant to monitor their implementation over the long time, keep the focus on communication and clarity and purpose of messages about the Medinfar Culture and collect and offer feedback throughout the process. We believe that the more we know and people know about what is happening, the better they can align, correct and improve/coordinate rituals and actions.
And because "evolution is us", see you soon!