Case study · Multi-year programme
How CDPQ turned six competing values into one DNA.
In 2016 CDPQ set out to change its culture. Its leaders agreed six new values and still felt something was missing. Written as three dualities, the same six words became the organisation's DNA. Over the next four years CDPQ built them into hiring, training, appraisal and pay.
- Client.
CDPQ (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec), one of Canada's largest institutional investors. It has operated as La Caisse since 2025. - Timeframe.
Four years from 2016: one to define and launch the DNA, three to build it into the talent system. - Who.
250 leaders first, then every department, every new hire and every appraisal. - Capability built.
Dilemma Reconciliation, written into the organisation's values.
The challenge
After the 2008 losses, the strategy needed a new culture.
The story starts in the financial crisis. For years CDPQ had run on three values: ambition, innovation and collaboration. In 2008 it lost more than $40 billion, about a fifth of its assets. After that loss, the diagnosis was painfully clear.
- Ambition meant too much risk taking.
- Innovation meant less understanding of own products.
- Collaboration meant lack of individual accountability.
"Any value disconnected from its opposite leads to a pathology."
Fons Trompenaars
The new CEO, Michael Sabia, came from Bell Canada and set out his mandate in three chapters.
- Chapter one: clean up.
Put the house in order. - Chapter two: rebuild the foundations.
Invest more in real assets: real estate, private equity and infrastructure. - Chapter three, from 2016: transform.
Make the strategy sustainable. That meant tackling the culture.
Oona Stock joined as CHRO in 2016, from a partnership at KPMG. Respect, integrity and trustworthiness would stay as the foundation. The question for the leadership team was which new values the final chapter needed.
The breakthrough
The values fell flat until they were written as pairs.
The first workshop produced six values. Long-serving staff put forward caution, rigour and collaboration. Newer arrivals, hired to transform CDPQ, brought ambition, innovation and accountability. The list was complete, and the room was disappointed.
When the group discussed what collaboration meant at CDPQ, they kept describing its opposite: collaborate, yes, but no consensus, because somebody has to be accountable for the investment. Oona Stock recognised the pattern from Fons Trompenaars' work. The team was caught inside dilemmas.
A month later, a second workshop presented the same six words as three dualities. Each pair joined a value from the long-serving group with one from the newcomers.
Ambitious and cautious.
Ambition from the newcomers. Caution from the long-serving.
Innovative and rigorous.
Innovation from the newcomers. Rigour from the long-serving.
Collaborative and accountable.
Accountability from the newcomers. Collaboration from the long-serving.
"They said: we won't call it our values. We're going to call it our DNA."
Oona Stock, former CHRO, CDPQ
The pairs also took the threat out of the change. People who had spent twenty years at CDPQ with a risk-averse mindset could stay cautious. What the DNA asked of them was to reconcile caution with ambition.
The three values from before the crisis were back, each now coupled with its opposite.
The programme
How CDPQ made the DNA stick, year by year.
The HR roadmap set out to build the three dualities into every HR programme and practice, from the first town hall to the bonus.
Year one: Define and launch
Make the DNA clear quickly, and make it known.
At a town hall, the CEO presented the final chapter of the strategy to 250 leaders: the strategy was the what, and the DNA was the how. Internal communication referred to the dualities constantly. Ambition appeared on one elevator door and caution on the other. Teams saw examples from their own work, such as staying accountable while collaborating with the legal team on a transaction. Workshops in every department, from HR and technology to private equity and private debt, then defined each duality in terms of day-to-day business.
Year two: Develop leaders
Turn the dualities into skills people can learn.
A competency model set out the skills behind each duality, from the fundamentals to manager and strategic level. A leadership bootcamp followed, and a corporate university called the Faculty. People liked the DNA but doubted anyone could be ambitious and cautious at the same time, so the Faculty set out to teach it: a three-year leadership curriculum with one duality per year, starting with collaboration and accountability, then innovation and rigour, then ambition and caution. All 250 leaders were trained in Dilemma Reconciliation so they could use it in their own business plans.
Year three: Hire and onboard
Bring in people who can hold both sides.
The dualities entered recruitment. HR worked with a psychologist on the psychometric tests, so that innovative, ambitious candidates also had to show the aptitude to be cautious and rigorous. A new integration programme told every joiner from day one: this is our DNA.
Year four: Appraise and reward
Make the DNA count where it matters most.
The appraisal system was rebuilt on nine behaviours tied to the three dualities, with one set for contributors, one for leaders and one for executives. The executive committee wrote its own behaviours, and the CEO evaluated its members against them. A new compensation programme made the DNA a multiplier on the bonus.
The dilemma lens soon spread beyond HR. Leaders realised that CDPQ's mission is itself a dilemma. As an investor it has to earn returns; as a public institution it has to contribute to Québec's economic development, and a province of ten million people cannot supply those returns on its own. Fons Trompenaars worked with the leadership on the investment dilemmas and linked them to the strategy.
Pay and performance
Culture became a multiplier on the bonus.
The last piece, in 2019, connected the DNA to pay. Bonus outcomes were multiplied by a factor for behaviour on the dualities: by one, two or three, or by zero.
An outstanding portfolio return delivered with poor behaviour earned a poor bonus. Zero multiplied by anything is zero.
The same behaviours applied from contributor to executive committee, so nobody was exempt.
The outcome
Leaders recognised themselves in the dualities.
Oona Stock gives two reasons the transformation worked. Employees and leaders could recognise themselves in the dualities, whichever side they started from. And HR practices and internal communication always pointed in the same direction, so the DNA never looked like a flavour of the month.
Michael Sabia and Oona Stock both left CDPQ in 2020. In January 2023 Global SWF named CDPQ its 2022 Fund of the Year, citing its impact on Québec's development and its global leadership. CDPQ also ranked 16th in the Best Places to Work programme's 2022 list of the world's top 20 workplaces.
Both came years after they had left. That timing is typical: the effect of a culture programme takes several years to settle. Neither recognition was awarded for the culture work itself, and many factors sit behind both. Oona Stock's own conclusion is that the culture work made a real difference, and that it took six years to get there.
"It was only words, and words are not sustainable. We had to make it stick."
Oona Stock, former CHRO, CDPQ
Conditions for success
What made it work, in Oona Stock's own words.
- A CEO who believes in it.
The CEO has to believe in the approach and be willing to change. The top-down message is crucial. - Agile methods.
Do not wait for the perfect definition, or you will waste time. Build momentum and get people involved in defining the values. - HR as a strategic asset.
The organisation and the CEO need to see the HR function as strategic. - An HR function that changes itself.
HR has to move beyond operations and live the new culture. At CDPQ the CHRO role became Executive Vice-President, Talent and Performance, because performance comes through talent.
About this case
Hear the story from Oona Stock.
This case study is based on a recorded testimonial by Oona Stock, who joined CDPQ as CHRO in 2016 and later became Executive Vice-President, Talent and Performance. Quotes on this page are lightly edited from speech. CDPQ has operated under the name La Caisse since 2025.
Let's talk
Which of your values is missing its opposite?
If your values read well and change little, start with a conversation about the strategy and a Dilemma Scan of your leadership team. Then build the dualities into how you hire, develop, appraise and pay.