Case
Learning Experiences Design, Culture Design, Facilitation
Leading the Medinfar Culture
A living program to experience Culture more and better, inside and out.
Culture is not established by decree. It is built, every day, by everyone.
Once upon a time there was a Medinfar Culture Charter born precisely 50 years after the creation of the organization itself, that is, when the year 2020 was running.
In this Charter, half a century of varied achievements is proudly described, and seeds are sown for a longed-for/desired change made of new paths and ambitions.
It was based on four strategic pillars and three corporate values that resulted from an internal choice, which involved the entire structure of the organization, through the diagnosis of Organizational Climate. It was based on these values that we carried out the work within the scope of the Liderar a Cultura Medinfar program.
Wishing that the content of the Culture Charter would come off the paper and walls of the office and factory, and manifest itself in everything people do daily, in 2019, Way Beyond was challenged by the People Management to design a program dedicated to clarifying, deepening, and disseminating Medinfar's culture.
Between the initial conversations and the first working session, strange and inconstant times were experienced, 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 for Medinfar's and Way Beyond's compasses to realign.
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, the knowledge of each other and the strengthening of the links between everyone and, simultaneously, contributing to its consolidation as a team promoting the Medinfar culture.
Between sharing striking life stories, discoveries resulting from feedback offered between colleagues, and reflection on the current and desired identity for this team, people created a safe and trusting environment, dedicating themselves to the purpose of the session and to being the helmsmen of this “operation” of leading the culture, starting with themselves. From this session, the desire to create was clear:
Unity, synergy, and alignment among all members of the top management;
An accessible, open, cohesive, transparent, diverse, transversal team;
An open and transparent communication flow that promotes trust;
Clarification and alignment of vision, purpose, and direction for all team members, so that they convey it, in words and actions, to all different people in the organization;
The creation of rituals that promote and consolidate relationships between these people and other teams, thus favoring the creation of a specific organizational culture.
Therefore, there was much to do. The (pre)occupation with Culture would continue its journey! If top management now had clearer ideas about themselves and what they wanted for the culture, it was time to involve more people and, progressively, everyone.
Influencing is good for the health... of Medinfar Culture
The program thus entered a new phase: the People Department identified around 70 area and team leaders to prepare them for the mission of disseminating the culture.
We called these people “Influencers” 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.
Since we don't know how to be or work any other way, sometime in the Autumn of 2022, we visited the factory (Condeixa-a-Nova) and the offices (Venda Nova) to, through 10 interviews and four focus groups, listen to and learn what some of these Influencers and people from their teams think about Medinfar Culture, the values it contains, their respective experiences and paths to take.
Influencers in action
We sought to inspire Influencers to define guiding principles for their role as disseminators of culture 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 investigation was completed, on a beautiful late afternoon in November 2022, we all met - top management, People Management, Medinfar Influencers, and the Way Beyond team – for the launch of this second phase of joint work.
It seemed to us that we captured in the air joy and enthusiasm for working together, for constructive changes towards common goals and, moreover, with everyone and each one having the power/capacity and responsibility to make them happen!
It seemed to us that we captured in the air joy and enthusiasm for working together, for constructive changes towards common goals and, moreover, with everyone and each one having the power/capacity and responsibility to make them happen!
To celebrate this motivating news, nothing like a delicious and lively dinner that ended with a "See you next year! See you soon!".
In January 2023, with the Medinfar Influencers distributed into four groups, the journey to explore the Culture Charter began to design rituals.
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. In total, 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, communication, feedback, and collaboration skills, among others;
Clarify, deepen, and activate each of the Culture's values, through the definition of rituals for their implementation. The proposed dynamics allowed us to find similarities and differences and 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 lived – but what exactly is a ritual?
Once the rituals to be implemented were designed and chosen, it was time to celebrate the Culture and the dedication of everyone. How? With an anthem, but we'll get there...
In this important moment, intended for informal reflection but also to celebrate joint achievements and to motivate us to continue the journey with luggage full of new learnings, the reunion, the conviviality, and the fun strengthened the union and the collective spirit in the face of organizational culture in general and values and rituals in particular.
Results were shared and the most voted rituals, which should start their journey, were presented to the group of Influencers and the top management.
Immediately afterwards, 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 the lyrics and chorus of the anthem to celebrate Culture, grab different musical instruments and tune their vocal cords... And that's how another piece of history was added to Medinfar, with its Influencers having built and publicly presented nothing more and nothing less than the anthem to Medinfar culture, which is already a viral success within the organization!
Long Live Medinfar Culture!
It was, therefore, time to help the Influencers translate the chosen rituals into concrete behaviors and actions. Thus, between the broad 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, when it comes to experiencing and ritualizing the values of Culture.
To support them in this mission, we joined together again and started by presenting a mysterious red folding object, called the "Medinfar Culture Map," which we offered to each of the participants.
Start, set off, run away!
Together, we went through this map, which is simultaneously an aid for telling their people what has already happened within the scope of the Leading the Medinfar Culture program and a starting point for aligning and involving their teams around the narrative and actions of this adventure.
In addition to the red map, each Influencer created and took for themselves and their team an action plan to implement at least one ritual chosen by them and the promise that by the end of 2023 they would put it into action, in collaboration with the team.
In addition to the action plans, it seemed to us that these people also took courage, enthusiasm, and optimism, and that we all said goodbye with the good feeling of fulfilling a chapter of a story that still has much to write and tell.
The path to the trilogy
Medinfar, thank you for your trust and enthusiasm!
The notebook to write the third part of this trilogy is yet to be opened. For now, we are giving the conversations time to explore possibilities.
With the rituals in action, we know that it will be relevant to monitor their implementation over the long term, maintain focus on communication and clarity and purpose of the messages about the Medinfar Culture, and collect and offer feedback throughout the entire process. We believe that the more we and people know about what is happening, the better they can align, correct and improve/coordinate rituals and actions.
And because “evolution is us”, it already is!