We partner with people leading transformation to help organisations define and implement strategic change. Our work sits at the intersection of strategy, leadership and change, and we support clients with participative strategy, organisation design, culture change, executive team development, and building internal capability.
We focus on creating the conditions for better decisions and sustained action, so outcomes stick long after the work is finished.
We usually work with leaders and teams in large or complex organisations across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Our clients often operate across multiple functions, geographies, business units or stakeholder groups.
If the work involves meaningful change, competing priorities, or a need to align people around what matters most, we can help.
We are deliberately participative. Instead of producing a strategy or design “for” the organisation, we help leaders and teams do the thinking together, in a structured way, so that commitment and ownership are built in from the start.
High quality involvement early on means implementation is not a separate phase that begins after a report is written – action flows more naturally from the conversations people have already been part of.
Typical outcomes include clearer strategic direction, stronger shared ownership of priorities, more effective decision-making and accountability, improved senior team alignment, and practical progress on cultural patterns that are affecting delivery.
We aim to leave clients with increased internal capability as well as tangible progress on the work at hand.
Culture is not something an organisation has; it is what an organisation does. It consists of the social patterns created and maintained as people interact. Culture subtly gives order to organisational life, providing instructions about how to behave and what is valued. Culture shows up in large and small symbols – everything from the organisation’s buildings and its mission statement to the ways people greet each other at the start of work and even those kitchen notices.
Many initiatives fail because they treat culture as separate from strategy and process. Where culture is seen as something nebulous or soft, a luxury to pay attention to, rather than core to the organisation’s success, it can be left in the hands of L&D or HR rather than being led from the top. This undermines credibility.
Culture change often starts from a training mindset where organisations try to educate people about the desired culture or values, detached from daily pressures. But this fails if people don’t see their leaders acting accordingly – “do as I say not as I do” dooms culture change to failure.
Firstly, we say don’t call it culture!
We ask clients to start with strategy and ambition, and get clear about how culture affects what they are trying to achieve. We are interested in how good culture can amplify success, and where poor culture undermines it. Our principles include:
• Systemic Orientation: We look at patterns that repeat across the whole system rather than blaming individuals. We are interested in the cultural landscape both in and outside the organisation’s formal boundaries, because stakeholders and customers can have a profound effect on culture.
• Immersing ourselves ‘In the Midst’: We don’t work on a business unit or team; we work alongside people in their ordinary everyday work, offering real-time coaching and reflection We ask “naïve” questions about mundane events to help insiders notice what they have taken for granted and show themselves the culture
• Culture creating moments: we look for the pivotal moments that shape the culture. These can be high-profile interventions such as a strategy process or organisation redesign, but also happen at the start of weeks, days and shifts. Culture changes one conversation at a time, so we help organisations focus on their culturally influential conversations.
Culture cannot be changed through simple cause-and-effect. We focus on what needs amplifying, and what needs dampening down. We help people create “disturbances” through micro-experiments that interrupt established norms, then noticing and amplifying the new, positive patterns that emerge.
Leaders must recognise that they are “the traffic”—everyone contributes to the current situation, often unwittingly. The leader’s role is to set boundaries, choose which behaviours to amplify or dampen, and model the culture they wish to see. This is more demanding than sending people off on a cultural awareness programme, but also much more successful.
Where should we start if we want to see real change?
Real change begins with consent and immersion. We recommend:
• Starting with clarity of purpose: why does culture matter to us, and what culture do we need to realise our ambitions?
• Getting sufficient interest and commitment among senior leaders about the need for change, and what needs to change
• Surface the culture to leaders and the wider organisation, being curious about the factors that make for great culture, and the hidden factors that can create poor culture
• Pay attention to the web of influences that shape culture: key processes, stories, the physical environment, control systems and rewards, organisational design.• Tailor your culture change: look at what needs to change in your business processes, how you measure and reward people, and how your organisation is designed.
• Where you need to make changes, enlist your people in doing real work in a way that is congruent with what you want to see more of (so if you want more collaborative culture you’re going to have to do the changes collaboratively!)
Changing culture is a journey of collective discovery. If you want to know what the water is, don’t just ask the fish—invite them to look at the world through different eyes.
Executive teams currently face a “triple challenge”: delivering immediate performance, driving AI and digital transformation, and addressing existential questions such as pursuing some kind of purpose in an increasingly febrile geopolitical, social and environmental context. When the pressure of these demands exceeds a team’s capacity to cope, their attention narrows to immediate firefighting, and they may lose their sense of themselves as a collective.
There are no off-the-shelf answers, as every team must define high performance for themselves.
However, key indicators include:
• Shared Purpose: Do you have a meaningful direction that you are collectively committed to?
• Trust and Vulnerability: Is there enough openness to get difficult organisational issues on the table and disagree with each other whilst staying in a productive relationship?
• Critical Judgement: Are you willing to challenge assumptions and avoid “group think” during key decisions?
• Effective Size: Does the team include only those roles necessary to perform the work?
Common obstacles include fragmentation, where members retreat into “functional silos” or act as “barons” competing for resources rather than collaborating. Teams often suffer from “concede then evade” dynamics, where they agree to a plan in a meeting but avoid implementing it later in order to protect the status quo.
At Metalogue, we believe conversation is the key to better business. We help teams examine their dialogue across three core dimensions:
• Voicing: How comfortable are you expressing diverse opinions and challenging one another?
• Inquiry: How effectively do you listen and seek to understand different perspectives?
• Productivity: Do your conversations result in useful, committed action?
This framework helps teams balance their attention across different timescales:
• Horizon 1: Maintaining the current system.
• Horizon 3: Nurturing future-oriented innovations.
• Horizon 2: Navigating the transitional space where current and future systems collide.
Our approach is systemic, looking at the team from the “outside-in” to understand environmental pressures and the “inside-out” to see how team dynamics shape their influence. The process typically follows five stages: Inquiry, Set Up, Convening, Continuing, and Reviewing. We create “punctuation points”—protected spaces for reflection—to help you stand back from immediate pressures and review how you are working together.
1. Recognise the “Triple Challenge”
Modern executive teams face a multifaceted set of demands that require a shift in collective attention: • Performance: Delivering immediate outcomes and operational excellence.
• Transformation: Driving innovation through enablers such as digitalisation and AI and evolving the organisation’s structure as a contiuous process.
• Existential: Addressing profound questions regarding geopolitical uncertainties, climate and environmental concerns, social justice and diversity imperatives, and the role of work and cultural identity in people’s lives.
2. Create “Punctuation Points” for Reflection
Teams that regularly reflect on their aims, purpose, and dynamics are significantly more effective. You must create protected spaces—punctuation points—to stand back from “firefighting” and review how you are working together. This prevents the team from narrowing its focus solely to immediate crises and allows for a more systemic, longer- term perspective.
3. Master the Quality of Conversation
At Metalogue, we believe conversation is the key to better business. To improve your team’s output, examine the quality of your “Team Dialogue” capability across these dimensions:
• Voicing: How comfortable are members in expressing diverse opinions and challenging the status quo?
• Inquiry: Is there a genuine desire to listen and understand one another’s perspectives?
• Productivity: Do your meetings result in clear, committed action rather than “concede then evade” dynamics?
• Roles: is there enough awareness amongst the team about the respective roles that colleagues often take up during meetings and decision-making forums?
4. Clarify Your Collective Purpose
Executive teams often fragment under pressure, with members retreating into “functional silos” or acting as “barons” for their own departments. To combat this, you must clarify your collective role:
• Agree on Value: Determine exactly how the team adds value as a collective that individuals cannot achieve alone.
• Balance Horizons: Use the Three Horizons Model to manage the tension between maintaining the current system (Horizon 1) and nurturing future- oriented innovations (Horizon 3).
5. Build a Culture of Trust and Vulnerability
The most effective senior teams are built on psychological safety. Trust is the willingness to accept and work creatively through disagreements and be vulnerable with one another. For example: sharing doubts, fears, and mistakes without fear of judgment. When leaders show vulnerability, it fosters a resilient team climate and helps process the “burden of responsibility” that comes with executive roles.
Metalogue Consulting views organisation design as a continuous activity that is technical, social, and political in nature. The firm believes that conversation is fundamental to better business outcomes, recognizing that organisations are composed of people, patterns, and social processes that extend beyond formal charts. The ultimate goal of design is to achieve a “good enough” agreement on how to arrange people and resources, rather than seeking unattainable perfection.
Restructuring is viewed as an option of last resort because it is often highly disruptive, time-consuming (research suggests most take over a year to “bed in”), and can negatively affect performance and customers during the transition period. Restructures are deemed helpful primarily when structure is clearly the critical barrier to strategy delivery, when other design areas (people, process, rewards) have been unsuccessfully addressed, or when the change is urgent, mandated, or intended as a major systemic shock to re-pattern activity.
Metalogue uses the idea of “organisational fabric”. In this metaphor, the vertical structures usually focused on in design processes are the “warp” threads, while the horizontal or cross-organisational connections (formal and informal) are the “weft” threads. The horizontal connections (the weft) are cr
Participation is essential because involving the right people in a thoughtful way helps to build and maintain trust and credibility across the organisation, which is vital for successful implementation and future redesign efforts. Furthermore, participation leads to a more workable solution and faster adoption when implemented.
While the process is often complex and iterative (“messy”), it is generally thought of in key phases: set-up and inquiry, determining design principles, creating design options, testing/deciding/tweaking, and implementation/transition. The initial set-up and planning phase, where scope and strategy are clarified, is considered critical.
To ensure rigour and provide a “handrail” through complex decisions, Metalogue employs several models and frameworks. These include Galbraith’s STAR model and the Operating Model Canvas in early steps. Design options are tested using agreed-upon Design Principles and Campbell & Goold’s Nine Tests of Design & Fit. Decision rights in the new structure are often clarified using the RAPID™ (Bain) framework.
Metalogue stresses that the “form” of the organisation must follow its “function,” necessitating clear and aligned strategic intent before redesign begins. Design principles are defined as the crucial link between strategy and design, translating strategy into tangible statements that prioritise what is essential and provide criteria for objective decision-making and assessing structural options.
Metalogue suggests that a core design group should typically include 6-9 members to ensure sufficient representation and voice, while still being small enough to be workable. The selection can be guided by the mnemonic LINKED, focusing on including the Leader of the unit, those who will Implement the design, people offering Novelty (fresh perspective), those with key Knowledge of how the work is done, Existing leaders, and a Diversity of perspectives.
When assisting clients with cost reduction, Metalogue advises taking three preparatory steps: clarifying design principles for the reduction, determining the split between fixed and variable costs, and applying the RADASC filter to review activities. RADASC stands for Remove or Reduce, Add, De-duplicate, Automate, Self-serve, and Combine activities, before making decisions on roles and staffing levels. 10. Why is the organisation design process considered a culture-creatin
The design and implementation phases are full of “culture-creating moments” that are deeply revealing of actual values and norms, often reinforcing or undermining the redesign’s core messages. Examples of these moments include how senior appointments and redundancies are managed, how changes are communicated, and who is included in the process. Leaders often underestimate this phase, which typically requires a minimum of 12-18 months for complex changes.
1. Clarify Your Strategic Intent
Before moving any boxes on a chart, you must be clear on why change is needed. Organisation design exists to deliver strategy; if the strategy is opaque, the design will be flawed.
• The “Form Follows Function” Principle: Your design must be a direct response to your strategic goals.
• Inquiry: Use discovery questions to test strategic alignment. Ask stakeholders: “How does our current structure help or hinder our strategy?”
2. Assemble Your Design Team (The LINKED Mnemonic)
Participation is essential to maintain trust and credibility. We recommend a core design group of 6–9 members to ensure diverse voices while remaining workable. Use the LINKED criteria to select members:
• L – Leader: The unit leader must be present and not delegate the task.
• I – Implementers: Those responsible for making the design work in practice.
• N – Novelty: Fresh perspectives from new joiners or high-potential talent.
• K – Knowledge: People who truly understand how the work gets done.
• E – Existing Leaders: A selection of current leadership to ensure commitment.
• D – Diversity: Inclusion of varied perspectives, including union or network representatives.
3. Weave the Organisational Fabric
Think of your organisation as a woven fabric.
• The Warp: These are the vertical, hierarchical structures usually focused on in traditional design.
• The Weft: These are the horizontal connections—lateral processes, matrix relationships, and networks—that translate design into performance. Effective design requires equal attention to both to create a resilient “organisational fabric”.
4. Follow a Rigorous Design Process
A structured approach provides a “handrail” through the inevitable anxiety of change.
• Establish Design Principles: Create no more than seven statements that act as a bridge back to your strategy.
• Develop Options: Create simple and hybrid structural options. Avoid the trap of only creating one.
• Test and Tweak: Use tools like Campbell & Goold’s Nine Tests to assess fit and the RAPID framework to clarify decision rights.
5. Treat Transition as a “Culture-Creating” Phase
Implementation is where the real work begins, yet it is often the most neglected phase.
• Realistic Timelines: Complex transitions typically require 12–24 months, not weeks.
• Culture-Creating Moments: How you manage senior appointments, redundancies, and communication conveys your actual values more than any mission statement.
• Psychological Safety: Acknowledge the emotional impact of change, marking endings properly before starting new beginnings.
Traditional strategy often feels like ‘dentistry’ — a painful, passive process where experts ‘do’ strategy to an organisation. In contrast,
Participative Strategy is a co-creative process that taps into the collective knowledge and energy of the entire organisation.
We believe the most powerful outcomes occur when those best placed to contribute, and those most affected by decisions, feel genuine ownership of the results. Rather than delivering a ‘polished’ document that sits on a shelf, we focus on the process of planning through to execution, ensuring that decisions and actions flow naturally from the conversations we facilitate.
Modern leaders operate in a world of high volatility, often described as a polycrisis — where disparate shocks like geopolitical shifts, climate change, AI and digitalisation interact to create overwhelming complexity. We help leaders move beyond rigid five – year plans to an organic, unforced approach that relies on continuous learning and ‘progressive approximation’. By setting a clear, intuitive direction—organisations can remain agile even when the ‘sand is shifting beneath their feet’.
We believe that purpose is not a perfunctory part of the strategy process; it is the frame. In our research, we found a continuous loop: purpose frames the strategic choices an organisation makes, while the delivery of that strategy, in turn, reshapes and deepens its identity. We help organisations close the gap between their ‘espoused’ purpose (what they say they do) and the ‘lived’ experience of their stakeholders to maintain trust and authenticity.
This is our metaphor for a common organisational divide: the ‘Suits’ (those focused on strategy and organisation design) and the ‘Cardigans’ (those focused on people, culture, and change). Often, these groups work in silos, leading to strategies that lack cultural traction or culture initiatives that lack strategic alignment. We act as strategic change partners, bringing these perspectives together from the start so that organisational design and human dynamics work in harmony.
Doing strategy on a shoestring is not a ‘cheap’ alternative; it is an investment in your own organisational capability. Instead of paying a ‘swarm’ of outside consultants to learn about your customers, we use your internal talent—supplemented by our expertise—to conduct rapid cycles of analysis, reflection and experimentation. As we often say, borrowing from Eisenhower: ‘plans are worthless, but planning is everything’.
Culture often ‘eats strategy for breakfast’ through the patterns of decisions we make—or fail to make. We use tools like the RAPID™ framework to clarify decision rights (who recommends, approves, performs, inputs, and decides). By surfacing team dynamics and metaphors—such as a ‘salad dressing’ culture where collective decisions quickly separate back into individual silos—we help teams stick to their commitments.
Step 1: Anchor the Strategy-Purpose Loop
Step 2: Do ‘Strategy on a Shoestring’
You do not need a ‘swarm’ of expensive outsiders to build a robust plan. Use your internal resources to build organisational capability.
Step 3: Integrate the ‘Suits’ and ‘Cardigans’
A common failure in strategy is the divide between ‘Suits’ (those focused on formal strategy, organisation design and data) and ‘Cardigans’ (those focused on people, culture, and change).
Step 4: Show ‘Unfinished’ Work
Waiting for a ‘polished’ document often leads to cynicism or silence that is mistaken for consent.
Step 5: Master the Art of Decision-Making
Culture eats strategy for breakfast through the decisions an organisation makes—or fails to make.
Step 6: Commit to Continuous Planning
In a ‘polycrisis’—where disparate global shocks interact—a rigid five-year plan is often irrelevant before it is finished.