Employee engagement
Culture determines whether people feel heard, valued and willing to contribute beyond the minimum.
Culture is what people experience
The real culture is
rarely written down.
It lives in the choices people make, the conversations they avoid and the behaviours leaders allow.
This is the way we do
things around here.
things around here.
Safety
What people believe is truly rewarded—or quietly tolerated—shapes whether they speak up, learn and act safely.
Performance
Accountability, initiative, collaboration and customer focus are all expressions of the culture people experience.
Change
The prevailing culture determines whether change is embraced, resisted or simply outlasted.
The culture beneath the culture
Unwritten Ground Rules
make culture visible.
UGRs—Unwritten Ground Rules—are people’s shared perceptions of “this is the way we do things around here”.
Culture lives in the shared perceptions people form about what really happens around here: what gets rewarded, what gets ignored, what is safe to say and what it takes to succeed.
These unwritten ground rules drive behaviour every day. Until they are understood, culture change is based on assumption.
We call them Unwritten Ground Rules—or UGRs®: people’s perceptions of “this is the way we do things around here”. UGRs are the real culture at work.
The leadership challenge
“If you don’t understand the culture people experience today, how can you know what needs to change tomorrow?”
The UGRs® Stock Take
See the culture
your strategy is
up against.
Before you invest in changing culture, know precisely what is helping your organisation—and what is quietly holding it back.
The UGRs Stock Take is Steve Simpson and Stef du Plessis’s distinctive, evidence-led diagnostic for revealing the prevailing culture. It starts with the culture your strategy actually requires, rather than measuring you against someone else’s generic model.
People complete carefully designed sentence starters in their own words. Their responses expose the Unwritten Ground Rules influencing decisions, behaviour and results—giving leaders a direct view of the culture people experience every day.
ClaritySee the culture that truly exists—not the culture leaders hope exists.
FocusIdentify the few cultural issues with the greatest strategic consequence.
ConfidenceBegin transformation with evidence, shared language and clear priorities.
UGRs® Stock TakeSample response
Around here, when someone
comes up with a new idea…
People listen, ask questions and help make the idea better.
Impact on our culture
NegativeNeutralPositive
Real language. Real culture.Focused on the priorities that matter most.
Insight leaders can act on
From hidden culture
to focused action.
The Stock Take gives leaders a credible starting point for change: what to protect, what to challenge and where intervention will create the greatest value.
Designed around your strategy
Every Stock Take is tailored to the cultural attributes your organisation needs for future success—not a predefined template.
Reveals what ratings miss
People describe “how things really work around here” in their own words, exposing context, contradictions and patterns a score cannot explain.
Separates enablers from blockers
Leaders see which Unwritten Ground Rules accelerate engagement, safety, performance and change—and which ones undermine them.
Turns evidence into direction
International benchmarks and an expert leadership debrief convert the findings into agreed priorities and a practical transformation agenda.
The culture transformation journey
Insight is the beginning.
Not the destination.
Understand
Use the UGRs Stock Take to reveal the prevailing culture in relation to what matters most for future success.
Focus
Identify the few cultural priorities that will make the greatest difference to strategy, people and performance.
Transform
Equip leaders and employees with practical ways to challenge unhelpful UGRs and create more productive ones.
Embed
Align everyday leadership, systems and conversations so the desired culture becomes the way things are done.
35+
years of practical culture transformation
Deep experience. Practical impact.
This is not theory.
It is work we have lived.
For more than 35 years, Steve Simpson and Stef du Plessis have worked with leaders and teams across the world to understand and transform workplace cultures.
Steve created the UGRs concept in the early 1990s. Together, Steve and Stef have developed and refined it through sustained, hands-on work across industries, countries and cultures. They understand the resistance, the leadership challenges and what it takes to turn insight into lasting change.
McLaren AutomotiveToyotaBarclaysKmartNextBoost Juice
“Now is the time for Steve Simpson and UGRs.”— Guy Russo, former CEO, Kmart & Target Australia
Begin with understanding
What is your culture
really telling people?
Tell us a little about your organisation. Steve or Stef will contact you to discuss the culture you need and whether the UGRs Stock Take is the right place to begin.
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