Ethnography in action: illuminating company culture

I'm going to share with you now a case study from a client of mine. They are a global professional services firm. I was asked to come in and work with them in 2018. They were expanding fast; they were attracting talent, and they were getting great feedback. Clients spoke about their culture. This was mentioned repeatedly. They love their culture. The employee spoke about it too. Everyone knew there was something different. But when people tried to describe it, the story often came out as the craic or the pints. In other words, the social side. The belief was they were building this really impressive business because they were good craic. But they knew there was more to it. So, rather bravely, they asked me to come in, and they gave me access to everyone. I interviewed people; I observed people. There were focus groups. So it was a really in-depth study of how their culture operated. The leaders were curious. They trusted that if we looked closer, we could really name what made the culture work. Ethnography was the fresh pair of eyes to help them do that. For this project, it wasn't about fixing culture at all. It was about understanding it, protecting it, and allowing them scale it.