Understand the situation
Our confidential interviews and diagnostic work surface different perspectives and what may be happening beneath the surface.
01 HOW WE WORK
We help youunderstand what’s happeningand toshape what happens next.
We help groups understand what’s getting in the way, work through it together and change the behaviours that affect business performance.
We bring the right people and groups into a disciplined process that connects relationship dynamics directly to the work and results they need to achieve together.
02 HOW WE WORK / SIX-STEP APPROACH
How understanding becomes change
Bringing difficult issues into the open requires care and experience. We work to create the conditions in which people can speak candidly, hear one another and address sensitive matters constructively.
- 01
Surface
Bring to the surface what’s really happening.
Different groups hear directly how others experience the relationship — including things that are usually softened, avoided or discussed elsewhere.
- 02
Understand
Move from “their problem” to “our pattern”
See how each group’s behaviour helps create and sustain what happens between them. Recognise how those patterns affect organisational performance.
- 03
Connect
Identify where patterns such as mistrust, avoidance, escalation and dependency are affecting decisions, execution, speed or accountability.
- 04
Change
Work through the difficult issues together and agree specific changes in how people and groups will challenge themselves and each other, decide, collaborate and take responsibility.
- 05
Practise
Put the agreed ways of working into daily practice. Use real work, inter-group feedback and critique to develop the skill and courage to behave differently even — or especially — when under pressure.
- 06
Embed
Make the new ways of working stick, through follow-up, external support and accountability for agreed commitments by all groups.
Progress is revisited regularly under external oversight, with groups reporting back on commitments, results and what still needs attention.
FOUNDATIONS OF OUR APPROACH
Grounded in behavioural science, guided by experienced judgement.
Our intergroup work draws on Grid theory and behavioural science to understand how people exercise authority, respond to disagreement, and work within teams and between groups. These foundations help us recognise patterns that reinforce defensiveness, inhibit candour, or support constructive challenge.
Agreement in the room can conceal differences that return to the work.
A leader’s account may go unchallenged. Reservations may remain within each group. People may leave with different understandings of what their commitments require.
Our workshops follow a carefully structured sequence that helps groups examine their relationships and begin to engage candidly. Preparation and experienced judgement help us recognise when important differences are being softened or left unspoken, including when familiar patterns reappear in the workshop itself.
Judging when and how to challenge apparent agreement helps groups work through those differences and develop commitments they understand, own, and can act on together.
03 SHAPED AROUND THE WORK
Start with the situation.
Build the response around it.
There is no standard programme.
The people involved, the preparation, the working sessions and the support that follows are shaped around what your organisation and the groups involved need to accomplish.
Focused where it matters most
Not every challenge requires a broad culture programme.
Hidden Currents allows us to help you focus on the specific relationships, groups, interfaces or behavioural patterns that are affecting performance — and to work directly with what the situation requires.
That focus might be a leadership team, a cross-functional collaboration or a critical partnership at a particular point during growth, a merger or integration.
Work through it together
Direct reciprocal feedback, managed working sessions and development help people confront what needs to change and take responsibility for doing it.
Make it stick
Agreed behavioural standards, structured follow-through and external oversight reinforce progress and sustain accountability after the intervention.
Our response is shaped by what your situation requires.