Excellence to Eminence

Culture Strategist Tool Kit

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Getting Started

Here are some recommended steps to get you started on your efforts of taking our culture from in place to in use.

1. Review the role of a Culture Strategist.

2. Review the PowerPoint from the one-day training session.

3. Schedule a meeting with your Dean/Vice President. The purpose of the meeting is to share your training experience and to clarify his/her expectations. If time permits, you can discuss your unit/college objectives where attention to culture is most needed.

4. Review the Ohio State resources covered in the Culture Strategist Training:

• www.osu.edu/eminence
• Human Operating System Manual and Winning Teams, Winning Cultures
• Videos
  • Thoughts from Leadership
  • Why I Support Culture Change
• Core Culture Team and Culture Action Teams (CATs)

4. Access the Senn Delaney Portal. Familiarize yourself with all that it offers and make a list of the topics and resources that you want to remember/use in the future.

5. List the opportunities you have to share retreat concepts and Ohio State Values in the scope of your job. Are there meetings you attend or host, such as staff meetings? Are there regular communications for which you’re responsible, such as a newsletter or e-mail update?

6. Use the information you’ve gathered to begin developing a plan. The plan supports moving retreat concepts and values from “in place” to “in use.”  Below are things to consider as you build your plan. Be sure to touch base with your Dean/VP to finalize your plan!

“In Place”

• What unfreezing retreats have already taken place in your college/unit?
• What reinforcement sessions have occurred?
• What is the possibility of hanging retreat posters on the walls in conference rooms?
• What unfreezing retreats and reinforcement sessions do you recommend for FY 11?

Personal Championship

• How will you personally champion the retreat concepts and values? What language can you adopt that feels comfortable to you and reinforces the concepts and values?
• With whom can you share your “I will” statements so that others see your shadow in growing and strengthening personal effectiveness?
• What coaching can you give your leader to champion the retreat concepts and values? Is there language you can suggest he/she adopt?
• What personal commitment will you make to devoting time and thinking to culture?

Partnerships

• With whom can you partner? Is it possible to ask the SHRP and Communications Director of your college/unit to meet? Are there other culture advocates who can join you?

College/Unit Objectives + Culture “In Use”

• Refresh yourself on the college/unit objectives in your strategic plan. Evaluate which of these can most benefit from a focus on retreat concepts and OSU values. 
• Create ideas on how to influence the achievement of these objectives. Reference the Strategist training, and identify desired outcomes/results, behaviors that will support the desired outcomes, retreat concepts that support these behaviors, thinking that support these behaviors. Map out how each of these affects the other.

With your map in hand, identify activities for awareness and practice.