Kirsty Bashforth’s CULTURE SHIFT has been shortlisted for a Business Book Award, in the category of Sustainable Change. The Business Book Awards aim to highlight leadership, change and sustainability in business, promoting authors who share their industry knowledge, experience and expertise. CULTURE SHIFT, which was described by Iain Conn (CEO of Centrica) as “straight talking, realistic and refreshingly honest”, was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. An audio edition narrated by the author has also been published by WF Howes.
In CULTURE SHIFT, Bashforth uses her extensive experience to outline exactly what it takes to oversee sustainable culture change in an organization, drawing on case studies such as IBM, Uber, VW and John Lewis.
Her book explores how to communicate cultural expectations to a number of stakeholders; implement new, lasting habits in the workforce; effectively measure and track organizational culture; as well as deal with push-back from senior leadership when, as time passes, the planned culture shift risks falling lower on their agenda.
Founded on behavioural economics, CULTURE SHIFT recognises that people do not always make average assumptions or follow rational logic. Changing a culture, therefore, is not about telling people what to do and expecting them to fall neatly in line - it's about identifying where they are now and how they make decisions, in order to help them form new habits to create a sustainable culture shift, from the very top of the organization's workforce to the bottom.
Praise for CULTURE SHIFT:
‘The mix of personal experience and straight-talking advice creates a vital handbook for anyone taking on the task of managing culture.’ — Sunny Varkey, Founder of GEMS Education and Varkey Foundation
‘I taught culture at a business school for years, and always felt that I was about to get found out, because all the models I came across sounded plausible but simply didn't work. I wish I'd had this book, and I wish I'd written it. Bravo - it should be issued to all new leaders along with their security pass on day one.’ — Eve Poole, author of LEADERSMITHING
‘One person's logic is not another's - a key premise of this accessible book that unpicks why you can't simply announce the culture you want, and expect to create it. It takes time, effort, balance and a healthy dose of pig-headedness. Wonderful, original stuff.’ — Charlie Hodgson, Team and Leadership Coach
Kirsty Bashforth is CEO of QuayFive Ltd, advising CEOs on change, organizational culture and leadership, with clients across energy, utilities, health and financial services sectors both in the FTSE 100 and globally. Previously, she was Group Head of Organizational Effectiveness with BP, designing and delivering the shift in the company's organizational culture for five years from 2010, as part of the company's response and recovery following the Deepwater Horizon incident.
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