Phase 3: Culture That Lasts
Embed safety, coaching, and feedback so culture shifts from compliance to contribution — and lasts.
If identity is the root and alignment is the trunk, culture is the canopy — the living environment under which people either thrive or disengage. Most change programs fail here, because they mistake culture for communication. Posters, campaigns, and slogans are launched, but behaviors don’t shift.
Phase 3 is where the Improvement Cience™ addresses culture at its true depth: behavior, safety, and trust.
Why Culture Fails
Culture fails quietly. It doesn’t collapse overnight; it erodes. Leaders say “CI matters” but act in urgency. Teams hear the slogans but watch the behaviors. Improvement becomes a side project instead of the way work is done.
Roland summarizes it simply: “Culture isn’t what leaders say. It’s what they repeat through action.”
From Compliance to Contribution
In many organizations, teams operate in what Roland calls a compliance culture — people do just enough to avoid friction. Improvement feels like risk. In a true CI culture, by contrast, people take initiative because they feel safe, supported, and proud.
The shift from compliance to contribution doesn’t come from frameworks. It comes from leaders modeling different behavior every day. Phase 3 equips you to make that shift.
Core Practices of Phase 3
Psychological Safety
Without safety, improvement dies in silence. People stop surfacing problems, admitting mistakes, or challenging assumptions. Roland teaches leaders to model fallibility (“I could be wrong here”), respond with curiosity, and celebrate vulnerability in public. These small acts make safety contagious.Coaching vs. Telling
Telling is efficient in the short term but destructive long term. It creates dependency. Coaching builds ownership. In this phase, you’ll practice frameworks like:
SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) for clarity without blame.
AID (Action–Impact–Desired outcome) for future-facing guidance.
Feed-Forward for peer-to-peer growth.
Influence Without Authority
Roland’s experience shows that CI leaders often sit in the middle, without formal power. Influence comes not from title but from trust, clarity, and relevance. You’ll learn how to translate improvement into others’ priorities, build micro-wins, and map stakeholders so influence spreads horizontally.Culture Signals
Culture isn’t abstract. It’s built from four visible signals: what you celebrate, what you tolerate, what you spend time on, and what you do when things go wrong. You’ll audit your own signals and consciously redesign them to reinforce improvement.
The Mindset Shifts in Phase 3
From being the expert → to being the coach.
From “driving results” → to “designing environments where results happen.”
From telling → to asking.
From authority → to influence.
From compliance → to contribution.
The Impact of Phase 3
By the end of this phase, you’ll have created the conditions for culture to sustain itself. Leaders consistently report:
Teams taking initiative without being pushed.
Improvement becoming embedded, not extra.
Trust levels rising across departments.
This is where culture begins to replicate. You don’t scale it by decree. You scale it because the way you lead becomes the way others lead too.
If identity is the root and alignment is the trunk, culture is the canopy — the living environment under which people either thrive or disengage. Most change programs fail here, because they mistake culture for communication. Posters, campaigns, and slogans are launched, but behaviors don’t shift.
Phase 3 is where the Improvement Cience™ addresses culture at its true depth: behavior, safety, and trust.
Why Culture Fails
Culture fails quietly. It doesn’t collapse overnight; it erodes. Leaders say “CI matters” but act in urgency. Teams hear the slogans but watch the behaviors. Improvement becomes a side project instead of the way work is done.
Roland summarizes it simply: “Culture isn’t what leaders say. It’s what they repeat through action.”
From Compliance to Contribution
In many organizations, teams operate in what Roland calls a compliance culture — people do just enough to avoid friction. Improvement feels like risk. In a true CI culture, by contrast, people take initiative because they feel safe, supported, and proud.
The shift from compliance to contribution doesn’t come from frameworks. It comes from leaders modeling different behavior every day. Phase 3 equips you to make that shift.
Core Practices of Phase 3
Psychological Safety
Without safety, improvement dies in silence. People stop surfacing problems, admitting mistakes, or challenging assumptions. Roland teaches leaders to model fallibility (“I could be wrong here”), respond with curiosity, and celebrate vulnerability in public. These small acts make safety contagious.Coaching vs. Telling
Telling is efficient in the short term but destructive long term. It creates dependency. Coaching builds ownership. In this phase, you’ll practice frameworks like:
SBI (Situation–Behavior–Impact) for clarity without blame.
AID (Action–Impact–Desired outcome) for future-facing guidance.
Feed-Forward for peer-to-peer growth.
Influence Without Authority
Roland’s experience shows that CI leaders often sit in the middle, without formal power. Influence comes not from title but from trust, clarity, and relevance. You’ll learn how to translate improvement into others’ priorities, build micro-wins, and map stakeholders so influence spreads horizontally.Culture Signals
Culture isn’t abstract. It’s built from four visible signals: what you celebrate, what you tolerate, what you spend time on, and what you do when things go wrong. You’ll audit your own signals and consciously redesign them to reinforce improvement.
The Mindset Shifts in Phase 3
From being the expert → to being the coach.
From “driving results” → to “designing environments where results happen.”
From telling → to asking.
From authority → to influence.
From compliance → to contribution.
The Impact of Phase 3
By the end of this phase, you’ll have created the conditions for culture to sustain itself. Leaders consistently report:
Teams taking initiative without being pushed.
Improvement becoming embedded, not extra.
Trust levels rising across departments.
This is where culture begins to replicate. You don’t scale it by decree. You scale it because the way you lead becomes the way others lead too.