Peter Drucker said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast. “Yet, most leaders spend their time developing well-thought-out goals and strategies and fail to realize a culture that is toxic, lacking trust, and unhealthy will squash the best-developed and well-intentioned goals and strategies in their tracks.  Before presenting new goals and strategies in an organization, a leader should assess the health of their culture. What changes must they make to create a culture ready to support new initiatives? Do you have the right people in the right positions? Is it the right time, or do you need to spend time developing our culture? If you are a school committee member or on a board of any organization, you may be eager to implement new goals, but you could be missing a vital element that will lead to successful outcomes.  We can't plant healthy seeds in toxic soil that lack nutrients or are overused.  They just won't grow. 

Leaders often know they have an unhealthy culture and purposely get lost in their responsibilities that keep them busy and avoid confronting the most challenging part of their job. Developing goals for your organization will not solve the problem of a culture that needs attention.

This workshop will cover the basic tenets of organizational behavior and discuss the two forces that make change and progress possible. These two forces challenge leaders to make difficult decisions. Leaders must ask and understand questions such as: Why do staff behave the way they do? Why do some staff respond while others do not? How do we influence behavior? When leaders want to initiate a change in their culture, it will only be as effective as how they understand and act towards the opposing forces.