THE CHALLENGE

We partnered with a state government agency as it moved through a significant structural transition.

The organisation had shifted from being part of a larger department to operating with a more independent role, broader responsibilities, and a refreshed purpose. While the legislative and structural changes had largely been implemented, the cultural shift needed to support this new chapter was still emerging.

Teams were working with commitment, but often in relative isolation. Limited cross-functional collaboration was creating inefficiencies and making it harder for the organisation to operate as one connected system. As the agency stepped into its expanded role, leaders recognised the need for clearer shared expectations about how people would work together, make decisions, support each other, and deliver on the organisation’s purpose.

The challenge was not simply to create a set of values or corporate statements. The organisation needed practical Guiding Principles that reflected its identity and translated its purpose into behaviours people could understand and apply in their day-to-day work.

THE SOLUTION

We designed and facilitated a human-centred process that brought together leadership alignment, staff engagement, behavioural insight, and practical implementation planning.

We supported the organisation to:

• Understand the leadership perspective through one-on-one meetings with each member of the Executive Leadership Team, exploring the transition, current challenges, readiness for change, and aspirations for the future.
• Align leaders around the desired culture through Executive Leadership Team workshops focused on the current state, the future state, and the themes that needed to guide the organisation’s next chapter.
• Engage teams across the organisation through twelve workshops that invited staff to contribute their perspectives on the behaviours, mindsets, and ways of working needed to support the agency’s purpose.
• Analyse staff input by synthesising more than 1,000 data points into five higher-order themes that reflected the organisation’s aspirations and practical needs.
• Develop distinctive Guiding Principles by working with the People and Culture team and Executive Leadership Team to turn the themes into memorable, action-oriented principles.
• Define supporting behaviours so each principle was more than a statement, with practical behaviours that made the principles tangible and relevant to everyday work.
• Create a Change Action Plan with stakeholder engagement strategies, implementation activities, accountabilities, and practical steps to support the principles being embedded over time.

Rather than developing generic values, the process focused on language that felt specific to the organisation and useful in practice. Principles such as “Pave the way, together,” “Be curious, be connected,” and “Look beyond the horizon” were designed to be memorable, meaningful, and easy to connect with day-to-day behaviours.

THE RESULTS

The project gave the organisation a practical cultural foundation for its next chapter.

Through the process, the organisation developed five distinctive Guiding Principles that reflected both leadership direction and staff input. Rather than sitting as broad statements of intent, each principle was supported by clear behaviours that helped translate the organisation’s purpose into everyday expectations for how people work together, make decisions, communicate, and collaborate.

Together, the Guiding Principles and supporting behaviours provide a shared reference point for more consistent, connected, and purpose-led ways of working. The accompanying Change Action Plan gives the organisation a roadmap for continuing the work, including opportunities to embed the principles into performance, recruitment, strategic planning, communication, and leadership practice.