Organizational Culture Change

Facilitating equity-centred organizational culture change

Organizational Culture Change

The Challenges

Organizational culture describes the values, behaviours, and norms that guide the way an organization operates. While organizational culture is rarely found in any official document or policy, it can generally be observed in what is applauded, rewarded, and treated as best practice and good behaviour. The culture of an organization determines, for example, whether staff is innovative or risk-averse, competitive or collaborative, driven by profits or by results. It also has a significant and mutually-inclusive relationship with organizational equity.

It is much easier for equity to take root in good organizational cultures that value innovation, embrace difference, and implement open door and whistleblower policies.

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However, poor organizational cultures tend to be marked by authoritarianism and ineffective leadership, fear and exclusion, an unhealthy divide between lower level and senior staff, and a lack of communication. Under these conditions, inequity flourishes.

These issues go unresolved because, in these poor cultures, there is no opportunity for lower level staff to communicate their perspectives and concerns, difference is not acknowledge or accommodated, and leaders who fear they may lose their positions if equity is centred push back against any attempt to do so.

Organizational Culture Change

Our Solutions

KOJO Institute guides clients towards organizational culture change that centres equity as a core value. We begin by determining a baseline on how staff and clients/service users feel about the organization through a qualitative assessment of the current culture. This includes anonymous engagement processes like focus groups and progressive excellence frameworks to determine what makes staff and services users think and feel positively or negatively about the organization. With this information as our foundation, we devise a multi-dimensional plan rooted in equity frameworks to address the issues that are uncovered.

As this customized plan is implemented and the organization’s culture begins to shift, our clients see, better employment equity, more content staff, lower turnover, higher retention, and greater client/service user satisfaction. This improved culture also means that staff will feel seen and not just present. They will trust that their differing experiences and identities will be considered and respected, and when they voice concerns, they are confident they will be addressed.

8 Levers To Organizational, Institutional and Systems Change

  • Engaging the Board of Directors
  • Impacting Staffing Strategies
  • Examining the Accountability Framework
  • Maximizing the Use of Data
  • Implementing Fresh Training and Learning
  • Amplifying Communications Strategies
  • Widening Community and Stakeholder Relations
  • Revisting Service or Business Models

What We Do Well

  • Equity
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression
  • Anti-Black Racism
  • Organizational Culture Change

How We Prepare You

  • Training
  • Executive Coaching
  • Community Consultations
  • Content & Research Development
  • Keynotes & Guest Lectures
  • Conferences
  • Multi-Session Programs

Building Transformation Skills

KOJO Institute leads executives, managers and organizations through an innovative approach that reconstructs their paradigms and systems connected to equity, diversity and inclusion. We amplify the vision for change through deep-dive explorations that identify the scope, segment competencies and quantify resources required to birth social innovation.

With a clear focus on client expectations, we aim to produce actionable frameworks and solutions that ultimately better the lives your people and organization. Contact us.

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What Our Clients Say

Joanne Adair
Development Manager, House of Friendship
Game Changing and Empowering

Kike visited House of Friendship for a Leadership/Management training session last June. It was incredible and life-changing for many of us. Kike’s gift to the world is to be able to openly name and allow us to sit in the discomfort of this work, holding us accountable, but also not judging anyone. She created a…

Javeed Sukhera
Chair, London Police Services Board
Profound and Actionable

The London Police Services Board asked Ms. Ojo-Thompson from the KOJO Institute to start off a day-long strategy session devoted to anti-racism in policing. Her presentation hit on all the right notes. In addition to challenging the Board to question long standing assumptions that are built upon racist legacies, she guided Board members towards actionable…
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Janine Manning
Granting Committee Chair, Laidlaw Foundation
Conscious and Skillful

Laidlaw Foundation had the privilege and pleasure of having Kike Ojo-Thompson support our collective staff and board anti-oppression training. Our individual levels of awareness and competency on the issue was from ‘none’ to ‘well versed’. Regardless of where we were on the spectrum of knowing, she supported all of us, with patience and enthusiasm. Miigwetch…
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Chris Robert
Co-President, BOLDforce for Salesforce Canada
Business-Critical Training

Kike exceeded our expectations at Salesforce.  She dynamically navigated audience demographics to provide extremely relevant Equity Training that stimulated immense conversation and insight. Her teachings should be at the centre of every organization’s strategy moving forward. I can’t wait to work with her again!

Graeme Young
President, Eva’s Initiatives for Homeless Youth
Enlightening and Effective

We thought we already had a pretty good handle on equity, diversity, inclusion and Anti-Black Racism, but Kike’s presentation was enlightening.  I have used her concepts several times since. Her style is energetic and engaging and she has a very positive manner. Our thirteen board members were engrossed by her work. Extremely effective.

Yasmin Razack, M.Ed.
Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Inclusion
Global Mind Innovator

Kike Ojo has the depth, knowledge and experience to engage participants of diverse backgrounds with highly complex subject matters that are relevant to all organizations. The sheer brilliance of her mind and ability to connect ideas is masterful, which allows everyone in the room to powerful moments of learning.

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