INTERGROUP01 HIDDEN CURRENTS / WITHIN THE ORGANISATION
01 OPENING
Leadership teams, departments and functions depend on one another to deliver. What happens between them can strengthen the organisation—or hold it back.
02 WITHIN THE ORGANISATION / WORKING TOGETHER?
Organisational culture describes the broader system of shared values, beliefs, norms and behaviours across an organisation.
Hidden Currents are more specific: they reflect the less visible assumptions, loyalties, expectations and relationship dynamics that shape how particular people and groups work together. These can include trust, mutual support, candour and shared purpose—as well as mistrust, avoidance, self-protection and blame.
They may sit within the wider culture, cut across it, or operate beneath it. Working with them can complement broader culture change.
Hidden Currents are not always visible as conflict. They can appear as excessive politeness, avoided conversations, assumptions that go untested, “managing of the message”, competing loyalties, unclear accountability, political sequencing or groups quietly working to different priorities.
Work on Hidden Currents can be precisely targeted. We can address particular relationships, groups or patterns of working without assuming that a whole-culture programme is needed.
03 WITHIN THE ORGANISATION / IN PRACTICE
Growing without losing the trust, speed and commitment that helped create the current success. Growth changes relationships as well as structures.
What can happen: senior leaders get pulled back into detail, decisions start climbing the hierarchy, and people wait for direction because informal coordination no longer works at scale.
The relationships and behavioural patterns between departments can strengthen—or undermine—cross-functional collaboration and the performance of the whole.
What can happen: issues that should be solved between functions are escalated upwards, work is passed on without the information others need, and each department pursues its own targets while the overall result suffers.
Supporting project teams and partners to build relationships capable of withstanding pressure, uncertainty and competing organisational interests.
What can happen: bad news is softened on the way upwards, problems are raised late, and pressure shifts the conversation from solving the issue to deciding who is to blame.
Building a cohesive leadership team whose members can speak candidly, work through difficult issues and combine their strengths to lead the whole organisation—not simply represent their individual functions.
What can happen: difficult issues are discussed cautiously, apparent agreement is reached, and leaders then return to their functions and continue pursuing their own priorities.
Helping the relationship system catch up with the new organisation and its challenges.
What can happen: the organisation chart changes quickly, but people still rely on old loyalties, protect former territories, and question the motives of the “other” group.
04 WITHIN THE ORGANISATION / LOOKING AHEAD
The answer will be different for every organisation. But what comes next may require people to raise difficult issues earlier, make decisions closer to the work, challenge more openly, take greater individual responsibility, and work across boundaries without collaboration breaking down under pressure.
We start with your organisation’s situation, the critical relationships and the results people need to achieve together. We explore the Hidden Currents shaping those relationships—what helps, what holds progress back and what needs to change.