INTERGROUP
01 HIDDEN CURRENTS / OPENING PAGE
Structures and strategies tell only part of the story. How people and groups work together determines what happens in practice.
We help organisations surface the relationships and behavioural dynamics shaping performance — and change them where they need to be changed.
Let’s Talk02 HIDDEN CURRENTS / BENEATH THE SURFACE
Organisations don’t operate through structures, processes and strategies alone.
Between functions.
Between levels.
Between leaders.
Between organisations.
Between groups that depend on one another to get something important done.
Hidden Currents are patterns of relationships, assumptions and behaviour between people and groups that are not fully understood, yet influence how work actually gets done — and therefore how an organisation performs.
Those relationships develop patterns — of trust and mistrust, candour and avoidance, cooperation and protection, challenge and compliance, ownership and dependency.
Some are easily recognised. Others are not. And even when the effects are visible, what is producing them may not be fully understood.
Sometimes the issue is not the organisational culture as a whole, but the dynamics operating within and between particular groups.
And currents that helped an organisation succeed in the past may not be the currents it needs for what’s coming next.
03 HIDDEN CURRENTS / RECOGNITION
Decisions take too long. Functions struggle to work effectively together. Issues repeatedly escalate. Accountability becomes unclear. A leadership team agrees in the room, but execution doesn’t follow. A critical project begins to move from collaboration towards blame and self-protection.
The organisation is growing. A new strategy is being implemented. Organisations are merging. Leadership is changing. A major project is beginning. Responsibility and authority need to move closer to the work.
In both situations, what you can see may only be part of the story.
04 HIDDEN CURRENTS / THE CONNECTION TO RESULTS
Relationships matter because work gets done through them.
Strategy, structure and process establish what should happen. Performance and results, however, depend on what actually does happen between the people and groups who need one another to deliver.
How decisions are made. How disagreement is handled. Whether difficult issues are raised early. Whether people challenge or comply. Whether responsibility is taken or pushed upwards. Whether groups solve problems together or protect their own position.
A Hidden Current becomes strategically important when it affects something the organisation cares about achieving.
05 HIDDEN CURRENTS / EVIDENCE OF CHANGE
Hear a client’s perspective ↗Sean Hegarty, Senior Project Leader, Energy Sector · 78 secFour departments at a food manufacturing site reported improvements in candour, objectivity, communication, role clarity and teamwork at a three-month follow-up after a focused intergroup intervention.
See the Food Manufacturing results ↗06 HIDDEN CURRENTS / MOVING FORWARD
Some currents help an organisation move forward. Others can quietly carry it away from its intended direction—even eroding strengths that have served it well.
Understanding those currents helps people decide what to preserve, what to change and what to create for what lies ahead.
The strengths and ways of working that continue to support performance.
The patterns that create drag or no longer serve the situation.
The relationships and ways of working now required.
07 HIDDEN CURRENTS / HOW WE WORK
We help create the conditions in which groups can speak candidly with one another, understand their mutual impact and agree what needs to change.
The focus is on how groups experience one another and how their ways of working affect organisational results. Feedback comes directly from the people involved, helping each other develop shared understanding and take responsibility for the changes they agree.
Make the patterns of behaviour and relationships visible.
Explore how people influence one another and sustain those patterns.
Connect those patterns to the results your organisation needs.
Agree different behaviours and who will do what, and by when.
Put agreed ways of working into daily practice, using real work, intergroup feedback and critique.
Follow through with scheduled reviews, external oversight and accountability for agreed commitments.
08 HIDDEN CURRENTS / CLOSING INVITATION
You may sense that something isn’t working as well as it should.
You may be facing a change that will ask something different of your organisation.
Or you may simply have a sense that what you’re seeing on the surface isn’t the whole story.
We’ll start with what you’re trying to accomplish and the relationships on which success depends.
It starts with a call.