Episode 431 - The Power of Culture with Laura Hamill

'Mom, why don't you just write it like you talk to me?'

When Laura Hamill set out to write a book about the subject she knew best - the subject she'd spent years researching in theory and practice - she naturally drew on all the studies, statistics and evidence she'd gathered together to support her argument. 

Turns out, that's not what the reader needed. (And it wasn't just her editor who told her that, it was her son, too.)

Those in organizations with a problematic culture don't need research studies, they need help. Laura had to learn how to step out from behind the screen of academic writing, how to own her experience and her opinion, and to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty and self-doubt that involves throughout the writing process. 

The result is a book that allows leaders and indeed anyone at any level to look beyond the words stencilled on the lobby walls to see how the real culture - what's expressed in how people speak and behave - is aligned with strategy, and what to do about it if it's not.