In February 2015, Llewellyn Walters, CEO of Massbuild, the building products division of Massmart, a warehouse retail organisation, was perplexed by the results of the 2014 employee engagement survey. The survey showed that employee engagement had continued to decline for a third year. Walters reflected on his decision in 2009 to work on the adage “culture will eat strategy for breakfast” and initiate a culture change process as a means of ensuring that Massbuild achieved its strategic objectives.

In 1998/1999, the Legal Aid Board faced closure because of a contingent liability of more than R600 million for legal services delivered by private practitioners to the organisation’s clients. Since then, through three phases of transformation, under two board chairmen and three chief executive officers, the Legal Aid Board has turned itself around. It has received unqualified audit reports from the office of the Auditor General since 2002 and it has extended its services to represent the accused in approximately 400 000 matters per year.

Johan Blignaut, the managing partner of Grant Thornton Kessel Feinstein Pretoria had worked hard to turn the partnership around and create a culture that was conducive to success. His efforts appeared to have been successful. The partnership had been dogged by in-fighting, bickering and power struggles. Now it was characterised by unity and mutual respect. But an ethnographic organisational culture survey had shown up a fundamental difference between the perceptions of the audit and other staff about the firm’s culture.

It was that time of year again: performance appraisal and salary review time. Nadia Strom, the new branch manager at the Pentlands branch of Barrows Bank, had one of her most difficult appraisals coming up the next day. The performance of branch accountant, Michael Nyageri, was not up to standard and was affecting the overall performance of the branch. She had to decide how to handle the appraisal and how to map a way forward with him towards improved performance.

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Foschini Group’s (FOS) Shani Naidoo was in excellent spirits when she walked out of a two-day group strategy meeting in October 2009. As managing director for group human resources (HR) since 2005, it was evident that the changes that she and her team had implemented had successfully made HR a critical part of Foschini’s overall business strategy. In pursuit of their vision to get rid of the company’s silo mentality, the HR team had introduced a totally new, centralised HR model. Despite the shake-up, Naidoo believed there was still a great deal more that needed to change.

In early 2006, Tikkun Consulting (Pty), a niche, public-sector focussed, legal consultancy was plunged into heated conflict when the firm’s co-director, Thandeka Mathabane (who owned 60% of the company and generated much of its business), accepted a government brief to identify legal alternatives to marriage as a way of recognising gay and lesbian unions.

It was June 2003 and just over a year-and-a-half since First National Bank (FNB) Metro (a division of FNB Retail) had completed the first stage of an organisational transformation initiative aimed at changing FNB Metro’s culture into one that was based on a shared vision and values, and appreciated diversity and embraced personal empowerment. The first part of the initiative had been a resounding success. 

In September 2012, IT firm Dimension Data paid out R1.26 billion to the various participants in a broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) deal that the company had signed eight years earlier. When Dimension Data had first embarked on its empowerment journey, legislated BEE in South Africa had been in its fledgling stages and, to a large extent, companies such as Dimension Data had to write their own rules.

Robert Shaw, CEO of Constantia Insurance Company Ltd, had a tough decision to make. Margaret Townsend, his senior administrative director, had just left his office, having confessed to breaking company policy. She had a long record of good service with the company. Now, however, she had informed him that she had been involved in a car accident on her way home the previous evening and, because “it was an emergency”, she had made use of her corporate credit card.

By May 2006, Dr Trevor Fisher, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Kalafong Hospital (situated to the west of Pretoria and one of South Africa’s largest regional hospitals) was at his wits’ end over the staff shortages at the hospital. There were shortages in all staff categories, but that of nursing staff in particular was making it very difficult to provide an acceptable level of health care. Fisher’s numerous letters and attempts to resolve the issue with the Gauteng Department of Health had not yet met with success.