A pharmaceutical company embarked on a journey to sustain its entrepreneurial family culture while growing organically and through international acquisitions.

The path selected was driven by the strong belief that any sustainable culture program requires a bottom-up and involving approach. Hence, doing it successfully would require understanding and engagement of the informal organizational networks.

Innovisor identified the three percent of the employees that had the most influence in the company aka “voice of the people” across the company.

Together, that 3% could reach 90% of the organization.

To engage the informal networks the company used the Innovisor model for engaging informal. The model cannot standalone. It should be used as a supplement to the normal engagement methods.

Two days after Innovisor had delivered its insights to the company leadership, the “voice of the people” were part of a two-day workshop with a heavy focus on dialogue, engagement, and trust-building.

The “voice of the people” were openly appointed enabling all other employees to approach them for sense-making following the two-day workshop.

The foundation for the two-day offsite were 52 words describing the company culture, and identified by Innovisor. These words were then filtered down to the first 11 words and later changes into six value statements.

Since all employees felt a sense of involvement in their formulation, they resonated very well on their introduction; the employees felt a strong ownership!

To sustain the cultural momentum the company is now embedding its value statements into its recruitment, onboarding, and talent identification practices.

The “voice of the people” are now reshaping all traditional company events, so they fit with the values.