The Saunders Collective is a culture & diversity consultancy.

If a holistic cultural overhaul feels necessary or imminent for your corporation, team, or community, The Saunders Collective culture definition approach may be right for you. We offers a range of services for individuals, projects, and businesses looking for healthier, clearer, and more respectful language to more directly align their work with their values. Whether you’re a writing team looking for a diversity consultant on an specific project, a small business looking to define a brand-new culture, or an organization ready to dig-in on change management, The Saunders Collective is here to help.

The Saunders Collective Diversity Dramaturgy Program led by Heath offers individuals and writing teams a proven approach to transform the ways in which bodies of all types are used in theatrical and television projects. Our approach is focused on the investigation of the storytelling impacts of choices associated with specific characters, actors and relationships as captured by characteristics of their bodies. We help writers develop practical ways to draw storytelling context from the background to the foreground in order to spark deeper understanding and empathy around differences of race, gender, and ability in themselves and their audiences.

The Saunders Collective Culture Definition Program led by Kim offers leaders a uniquely effective approach to transforming organizational culture and behaviors. Our approach is focused on bringing insights from across an organization together with targeted leadership team work in order to develop a shared story about the identity of the organization. This storytelling approach opens the possibility for systemic change by reflecting language, ideas, and passion from the breadth of the organization, while also building and deepening relationships among leadership team members. An organization’s identity story, when authentically and consistently embodied by leadership, can lay the groundwork for a psychologically safe organization where all employees are able to show up with their most authentic selves, ready to perform at their highest levels.

A Culture Definition project can deliver revitalized Vision and Mission Stories about what an organization does, how and why they do it. A Vision Story is one that captures the most aspirational view of why the organization exists, the possibilities it unlocks, and its perspective of where it will go, including how its work can change the experience of people, communities, and the world at large. A Mission Story is one that provides focus for the first part of the Vision Story – how and what the organization plans to accomplish in the first ten years of the Vision journey. Both the Vision and Mission Stories are intended to be short and memorable, capturing the shared focus of the entire organization. Their objective is to offer clear and practical support to every leader, employee, member or participant in verifying and validating the importance of the work they individually do. Told well, the Vision and Mission Stories help support creativity and decision-making across the organization at all levels. Vision and Mission Story development is a top-down process, and often includes 1:1 interviewing and collaborative work to identify insights and build a shared perspective.

Most Culture Definition Projects also include focused work about an organization’s identity and shared values: the story of who the organization is and how it approaches its work. A Values Story captures the spirit of the organization, illuminating the organization’s identity through the identity and behaviors of its leaders. To employees, members or participants, the words an organization chooses to articulate a Values Story (the Values ‘statements’) matter far less than the embodiment of those statements in leadership identity and behaviors. Values are most effectively expressed through anecdotal stories that provide embodied examples of the statements. A Values Story can only be aspirational to the degree that the organization has constructed and committed to public accountability measures to expose gaps between observed behaviors and Values statements (we call these Values Story Accountability Practices). A Values Story with significant gaps between behavior and words decreases psychological safety within an organization. Told well through both leadership behaviors and statements, a Values Story builds trust and long-term commitment to an organization and inspires consistent behaviors in all leaders, employees, members and participants. Values Story and Values Story Accountability development is a bottoms-up process, and often includes broad surveying, focus groups, and intensive leadership coaching.

Our Culture Definition work often has a particular focus on diversity and inclusion. For these projects, the development of a Values Story and Values Story Accountability Practices are the primary objective, and offer a starting point for organizations grappling with the 2020’s rise of accountability questions around race, ethnicity, and gender.

Our team brings significant experience in culture definition and storytelling work. Kim spent 25 years in technology leadership roles, including 18 years as a senior leader at Microsoft Corporation, where she ran organizations up to 600 employees in size to deliver high-value innovations in software and services. She has led over 25 organizational re-alignments and culture change efforts from multiple perspectives, including organization leader, chief of staff, and external consultant. She was also a leader in shaping Microsoft’s early Diversity & Inclusion work. Heath, Trent, Alanna and Claire engaged with Kim on Culture Definition work during 2020, including with a mid-size technology company recently acquired by private equity.