Culture Definition

Results

+50%

Increase in ambition

and a reduced culture gap against all key behaviours.

Enhanced business performance

and greater resilience coming out of the pandemic.

A more aligned leadership team,

challenging one another more regularly.

THE BUSINESS

BMJ is a global healthcare and knowledge provider with a mission to drive positive change. In 2020, Chris Jones joined as CEO with a mandate to drive business performance.

Recognising the critical role of culture and its impact on unlocking strategic execution, Jones enlisted Coode to conduct a detailed culture assessment. He wanted to accelerate his understanding of the existing culture to understand where to focus his efforts for maximum impact.

THE CHALLENGE

Using the culture management platform Culture15, we conducted a full diagnostic to understand BMJ’s existing cultural profile, and potential blockers and enablers, supported by focus groups and leadership interviews.

What emerged was a picture of a culture that was collaborative, purpose-led and harmonious, which made it a positive place to work. However, it lacked the ambition and decisiveness needed to push performance to the next level. The key challenge was how to evolve the culture to embrace these qualities.

“Since we started working with Coode, not only is business performance accelerating, but we’re also seeing increases in our rates of product development and innovation.”

BMJ

CEO

THE APPROACH

The insights gained from our diagnostic helped us to design a culture transformation programme that worked on multiple levels, including:

Defining a clear target culture to align and rally the organisation using Culture15.
Aligning the Executive Team over a structured 9-month process, embedding a collective agenda, shared beliefs and common ways of working.
Bolstering leadership and role-modelling capabilities across the wider leadership population of 100+, setting clear leadership expectations.
Implementing behavioural nudge workshops to engage all levels of the organisation.
Aligning the company’s institutional practices to support the new culture.
Establishing a Culture Steering Group to steward progress and surface feedback on change.
Employing ongoing tracking and measurement of progress using Culture15.

More case studies

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) recognised that strengthening its executive team would be critical to delivering its strategy. While its leaders brought significant individual expertise, there was an opportunity to create a more integrated, high-performing team that was greater than the sum of its parts, while establishing the ways of working and leadership behaviours needed to support this.

Since 2019, Coode has partnered with Solina to support its transformation into a globally aligned organisation. As the company achieved fivefold revenue growth and expanded across Europe, the Americas and Asia, integrating 18 acquisitions, Coode helped define a unifying strategic narrative and operating model that balanced local agility with global scale. By aligning leadership and embedding shared cultural principles, Solina built one cohesive story that continues to drive its international success.

In 2022, a new CEO took to the helm of Concurrent Technologies Plc, an organisation that was well-established in its niche but had hit a plateau. The business had no formal leadership team, with most key decisions previously made by the former CEO. There had been little emphasis on leadership development, and the company lacked the ambition to grow.

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