5 Steps for Choosing the Right Corporate Culture Consultant

Finding a solution partner for your organization’s cultural change initiative can be bewildering. There are multiple providers on the market, all typically offering the same outcomes for their solution: enhanced productivity, increased talent attraction, improved staff retention and job satisfaction. It’s confusing to the point where you may feel decision paralysis and worry about the risk of making the wrong choice.

Don’t rush. The best approach to selecting an effective culture consultant is to do your research and ask plenty of questions. Korn Ferry has put together a list of essential questions to identify the best partner to help reach your culture change goals.

The most successful organizations choose a partner that can support both strategy and execution. The gap between talking the talk and walking the walk can be the difference between creating the momentum behind culture change, and not.

Below, we list five steps to help you make a better-informed choice.

1. Define your goals and know the outcomes you want from a workplace cultural change initiative.
2. Ask providers how they will tailor their approach to your organization and determine the best course of action to suit your business needs.
3. Ask providers how they will help you bring stakeholders on board, generate momentum and create behavioral change at scale.
4. Find out how providers intend to define and measure your Return-on-Culture (ROC).
5. Seek case studies and testimonials from companies similar to yours.

Beware of vague answers. Keep asking questions until you have a firm understanding of the provider’s methodologies, processes, models and the research those are based upon. Ask about the experience and expertise of their consultants, what to expect if you work together, and exactly how they intend to measure results.

Ask the right questions

Still unsure about what to ask? Korn Ferry has put together a list of essential questions to identify the best partner to help reach your organizational culture change goals.