National Gallery of Australia

The Problem

The National Gallery of Australia was undergoing a period of change that lead to uncertainty and disagreement around their values, purpose, and vision for the future. This was affecting team cohesion, productivity and their collective sense of direction.

They needed our help to:

  • Build their internal culture and capabilities during this period of. Change;
  • Increase their risk threshold and embrace failure as a path to success;
  • Increase ownership and empowerment in order to decide and act without displacing responsibility;
  • Nurture a culture of distributed leadership and creative confidence;
  • Generate engagement and buy-in from diverse stakeholders;
  • Be more responsive and less reactive as a team;
  • Get staff to talk openly and safely about their challenges, their vision and the direction of the Gallery;
  • Have Management really listen to the needs and concerns of staff during this period of change;
  • Increase trust and connection within the workplace and develop productive professional relationships that enable the Gallery to embrace positive and inclusive change.

Our Work

We ran a number of engaging human-centred, experiential workshops which created a psychologically and emotionally safe space that helped staff feel comfortable being honest with each other and sharing their true thoughts and feelings.

Habitus underwent a design thinking and strategic planning process using ethnographic methods to identify and understand what their problem was at a foundational level.

We drew out and encouraged diverse opinions to forge a shared vision and purpose that united the disparate teams. Participants collectively defined a realistic action plan for moving forward, identified likely obstacles, and developed shared systems of accountability to ensure their plan became a reality.

The Outcome

The depth of the shared experiences we facilitated enabled individuals to move beyond engaging with each other in silos, as faceless colleagues who were protective of their domains, to see each other as real humans who embraced their differences as collective strengths.

By using the Brave Conversations framework and combining it with ethnographic processes, we were able to get to the heart of the problem and take their negativity into concrete action items for inclusive change.

Step towards transformation

Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our next transformative workshop and empower your team to thrive in a culture of collaboration, innovation, and growth.