Case study · From exploit to explore
Keep the performance engine. Build growth through it.
AtkinsRéalis, the engineering group formerly known as SNC-Lavalin, had spent years building an execution culture to close out loss-making legacy projects. Its new strategy demanded growth and innovation. Swapping one culture for the other would have thrown away what had just been built. Over four years, its senior leaders learned to reconcile the two.
- Client.
AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), close to 40,000 people worldwide. - Timeframe.
Four years: three phases, then roll-out across the organisation. - Who.
Around 50 members of the senior Operational Leadership Group first, then a wider population of leaders and managers. - Capability built.
Dilemma Reconciliation, anchored in servant leadership.
The challenge
A culture built to stop the losses now had to start the growth.
A small number of legacy lump-sum turnkey (LSTK) projects had caused losses over several years. A new CEO arrived in 2019. The company exited LSTK, explored divesting its Oil and Gas operations, and rebuilt itself around core engineering, nuclear services and major project management.
By 2020 SNC-Lavalin had become an execution culture. Integrity, risk avoidance and operational delivery were its defining traits. That culture did its job: it stabilised the business.
The new strategy needed new business opportunities, new service offerings, data and technology, and fast learning. That called for a new, exploratory culture.
"How could the company reinvent itself and grow again, whilst retaining the elements of its culture that would still be important?"
Trompenaars and Cullens, 2024
Most change programmes answer that question by replacing the old culture. AtkinsRéalis set out to enrich it with its opposite.
The programme
How the capability was built, year by year.
Each phase was built on data from the one before. Culture was designed into every step, including the order of the steps. In 4R terms, the programme travelled from Recognise to Realise.
Year one: Diagnose
Map the current and ideal culture, and the dilemmas in between.
Around 50 senior operational leaders completed a culture diagnostic and THT's Dilemma Scan as pre-work. An in-person workshop introduced the four corporate cultures and Dilemma Reconciliation, then put both to work on live operational challenges. The output was a long-list of strategic and cultural dilemmas.
Year two: Prioritise
Turn the long-list into five dualities.
The same leaders chose and edited the top competencies of the existing "performance engine" and the needed "growth and innovation engine". The top five on each side became five competency dualities, and each leader rated their own current and desired behaviour on them. A second workshop prioritised these strategic dilemmas and introduced servant leadership.
Year three: Codify and practise
Build the behavioural framework, then live it.
The prioritised dilemmas became a leadership behavioural framework. A final workshop brought servant leadership to life in action learning sets. An experiential session with a live orchestra followed, with a buddy system and a six-month follow-up.
Year four: Scale and embed
Make it the way leaders are developed, appraised and recognised.
Leadership programmes with Oxford Saïd Business School, hybrid e-learning for a wider population, and changes to appraisal and recognition. Progress was tracked against the pre-programme baseline, through to the company's pivot to growth.
The diagnosis
From Guided Missile and Eiffel Tower to Guided Incubator.
The results were consistent across the leadership group. The current culture was a fusion of the Guided Missile and the Eiffel Tower. The desired culture was what the authors termed a "Guided Incubator".
Today: Guided Missile and Eiffel Tower.
A clear orientation to executing tasks, in a very risk-conscious way, focused on short to medium-term performance.
In the leaders' own animal metaphors: thoughtful but slow to change, short on agility, focused on the here and now.
Tomorrow: Guided Incubator.
More innovation and more personalised accountability, around more agile operations.
In the leaders' own animal metaphors: organised, working together at pace as a pack for mutual benefit, flexible, adaptable and purposeful.
The Dilemma Scan cross-validated the picture. Most dilemmas the leaders raised were expressions of the gap between the culture they had and the culture they wanted. Three, in their own words:
- We need to invest in the future to create a long-term sustainable and growing business.
We need emphasis on quarterly financial targets, which impacts entrepreneurial spirit. - We need a structured delegation of authority, with strong executive oversight.
We want sectors to innovate and be entrepreneurs, and manage their daily operations. - We need people to identify with their own business unit, taking accountability for their own P&L and team.
We need them to keep the larger picture in mind, draw on shared capability and serve the organisation's best interests.
The five dualities
Five dualities the business could not choose between.
The company had invested heavily in its performance engine, and it was delivering. Doing one set of competencies at the cost of the other would have been sub-optimal. AtkinsRéalis called the resulting dilemmas dualities: pairs of competencies it needed at the same time.
1 Reliable performance today
and delivering the future
Motivate people to perform, measure progress and act to rectify issues; push the boundaries, focus on the bigger picture and create a compelling narrative for the future.
2 Individual accountability
and collaboration
Own targets and budgets, set out accountabilities and accept consequences; network and collaborate with others for the greater good, building trust and respect.
3 Execution
and entrepreneurship
Deliver flawlessly, aligning resources and processes to drive results; create new business opportunities and service offerings, with a high tolerance for failing quickly to learn.
4 Risk-conscious
and innovation
Weigh up risks, take a cautious approach and measure progress; bring new ideas, value novel solutions and new business models, and innovate quickly.
5 Consistent delivery
and agile delivery
Keep activities established, reliable and stable to create assurance for clients; use experimentation, fast learning, data and technology to deploy solutions rapidly.
Leaders then rated their own behaviour on each duality. For most of the five, the pattern was the same: strong on the execution side, a clear gap on the growth side.
The reconciliations
Five dualities became three through-through statements.
Dilemma Reconciliation asks how more of one value can be achieved through its opposite. The final leadership behavioural framework is built on three such reconciliations, each with the behaviours that make it observable.
Delivering the future through reliable performance today.
Through reliable performance, delivers future growth and long-term results for all stakeholders.
- Leads by example and lives by the values; sets aspirational goals and inspires others to deliver against purpose and strategy.
- Encourages innovation and growth; combines people, data and technology to deliver results.
Collaborating through individual accountability.
Through holding oneself accountable for the delivery of results, works together across organisational boundaries.
- Reaches out for ideas and shares knowledge and resources for the best outcomes for the company, its clients and other stakeholders.
- Values diversity; creates a psychologically safe environment; considers alternative views when deciding; ensures others can excel.
Entrepreneurship through flawless execution.
Able to scale innovative solutions, whilst bringing consistency of delivery and flawless execution.
- Focuses on winning future business; develops compelling value propositions, services and solutions for clients.
- Achieves growth by taking calculated risks; builds commitment through stakeholder buy-in.
All three rest on the company's values of safety, integrity, collaboration and innovation, and on its purpose: engineering a better future for our planet and its people.
"It is not simply the replacement of the existing with the desired. It is enriching the existing with what may well be its opposite. This is the kernel of the 'through-through' process."
Trompenaars and Cullens, 2024
Making it personal
Leaders had to hear what their leadership sounds like.
A good leader enables others to perform. The servant leadership workshop worked through Greenleaf's ten principles: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualisation, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Leaders rated themselves on each, from always to never, wrote down examples, and sought feedback from peers.
The workshop alone did not embed the behaviour. Leaders needed a personal experience. Conductor Roger Nierenberg of The Music Paradigm seated the leadership group among a makeshift orchestra and conducted the same piece several ways: brilliantly, then badly. The musicians had not been briefed. Asked why they were playing as they were, they named what each style did to them.
- Micro-management.
Players did exactly what they were asked. Nothing more, and with no enthusiasm. - Disinterest.
Boredom in the playing. - Favouritism.
Whole sections of the orchestra annoyed. - Absent leadership.
Within micro-seconds the orchestra appointed the first violin as its new leader.
Executives moved seats to hear how the music changes depending on where you sit. Each returned to work with a buddy, and completed a follow-up questionnaire six months later.
The early signal was encouraging and modest. Of 17 respondents, 15 had used the dilemma process at least once or twice, 11 rated it useful or very useful, and 16 said it had helped them look at problems differently, at least to some extent. The authors judged it too early to call the results sustainable, and concluded that more should be invested in servant leadership.
A servant-leader uses authority to grow the authority of others. The orchestra made that audible.
Scaling and embedding
From a leadership workshop to how the company runs.
A good leader ensures that reconciliations are embedded in values, behaviour, structures and processes. AtkinsRéalis did that through its HR processes.
- Leadership programmes.
Bespoke programmes with Oxford Saïd Business School, originally built around the performance engine, now introduce servant leadership and work on reconciling the dualities. - Hybrid learning at scale.
Two custom e-learning modules, Dilemma Reconciliation Competence and Introduction into Servant Leadership, plus virtual sessions in which managers frame their own challenges as dilemmas and reconcile them together. - Appraisal.
Inspired by Motorola's Individual Dignity Entitlement process, the mid-year career development discussion asks whether work is meaningful and properly resourced. Every "no" becomes the manager's job to turn into a "yes". - Recognition.
#WOW, a global recognition platform built with Workhuman. Managers and peers recognise colleagues in the moment, financially or with a simple thank you, visible to everyone.
The evidence
Employees noticed the difference.
IPSOS has run AtkinsRéalis's independent "Vox" all-staff survey since 2019. Twelve of its items map to servant leadership dimensions. All twelve rose between the pre-programme baseline and 2023.
-
Vox survey itemBaseline → 2023Change
- Building community
-
I feel valued and recognised for the work I do73 → 82+9
-
I am treated with fairness and respect85 → 93+8
-
In my team we have a positive working atmosphere89 → 93+4
-
My immediate manager trusts me to organise my work, regardless of where I do it*92 → 96+4
- Listening
-
My immediate manager empowers me81 → 89+8
-
I feel able to discuss any issues or new ideas with my immediate manager90 → 93+3
- Commitment to the growth of people
-
My immediate manager helps me fulfil my potential80 → 86+6
-
My immediate manager challenges me in a constructive way80 → 85+5
-
AtkinsRéalis is good at developing employees to their utmost potential69 → 74+5
-
My immediate manager gives me regular feedback on my performance77 → 81+4
-
People are given opportunities to grow, whatever their background*80 → 84+4
- Healing
-
My immediate manager supports my wellbeing and mental health*90 → 91+1
Baseline is 2019, except items marked *, first asked in 2021.
Recognition data points the same way. Employees who receive two or more peer or manager recognitions in a year are significantly less likely to leave. At four recognitions, combining financial and non-financial, the likelihood of leaving is five times lower than for employees with none. Financial recognition alone does not raise the propensity to stay.
Progress is also tracked with a Servant Leadership profiler (with a 360 version), an Intercultural Competence profiler, and a Culture Scan measured before, during and after the programme.
The authors are candid that other factors played a part in the survey gains, such as better tracking of appraisal completion. The direction is consistent across every item, and it is measured independently of the company.
In 2023 AtkinsRéalis pivoted to the growth phase of its business, the shift the programme was designed to support.
What transfers
What any leadership team changing direction can take from this.
- Start from strategy.
The dualities came straight from the pivot from execution to growth. The culture work followed the business question. - Name what the current culture does well.
The performance engine had stabilised the company. Naming it as a strength made it possible to build growth through it. - Use the leaders' own data.
The case for change came from the leaders' own Dilemma Scan, competency rankings and self-ratings. - Write reconciliations as behaviours.
Each through-through statement came with behaviours specific enough to observe, discuss and give feedback on. - Make it personal, then make it systemic.
The orchestra made servant leadership felt. Learning, appraisal and recognition kept it in daily practice. - Measure with instruments people already trust.
Independent engagement survey items, mapped to servant leadership dimensions and tracked year on year.
Turn tension into traction, one duality at a time.
Read the full story
The full case, in the authors' own words.
This case study is based on a journal article co-written by Fons Trompenaars, Director of THT Consulting, and James Cullens, CHRO of AtkinsRéalis at the time of publication. In the recording below, James Cullens describes the programme in his own words.
Trompenaars, F. and Cullens, A. J. (2024). "Duality Leadership at AtkinsRéalis: From an Execution to Exploration and Growth Culture". Journal of Intercultural Management and Ethics, Issue 3, pp. 5-26.
Let's talk
Which dualities will decide your next strategy?
If your strategy asks for a culture you do not yet have, start where AtkinsRéalis started. Begin with a conversation about the business question and a Dilemma Scan of your leadership team, then build the programme on what the data shows and measure it from the start.