Future-ready values: CityFibre
How does a rapidly expanding company maintain their core values as they grow and adapt to new challenges in the marketplace?
Services
Values & Behaviours
Internal Alignment
Internal Cascade
The Challenge
The UK B2B broadband market is structurally biased towards the incumbent providers. CityFibre is a classic David to the existing Goliaths in the category, attributing part of their early success to a deeply loved and well-applied set of values and behaviours called the CityFibre Way. While the company had enjoyed a period of rapid growth, bringing on hundreds of new employees, the assimilation of so many new people highlighted a need to revisit the CityFibre Way and evolve these values to meet the company’s new trajectory and ambitions. This wasn’t about a top-down approach to culture though, as there was a desire to engage with the whole organisation in a way that ensured everyone could understand the meaning and importance of a Challenger Mindset to the business and as individuals.
Inputs
- Stakeholder Interviews
- Company-wide Survey
- Senior Leadership Workshops
Deliverables
- Company Values
- Internal Cascade Plan
The Challenge
The UK B2B broadband market is structurally biased towards the incumbent providers. CityFibre is a classic David to the existing Goliaths in the category, attributing part of their early success to a deeply loved and well-applied set of values and behaviours called the CityFibre Way. While the company had enjoyed a period of rapid growth, bringing on hundreds of new employees, the assimilation of so many new people highlighted a need to revisit the CityFibre Way and evolve these values to meet the company’s new trajectory and ambitions. This wasn’t about a top-down approach to culture though, as there was a desire to engage with the whole organisation in a way that ensured everyone could understand the meaning and importance of a Challenger Mindset to the business and as individuals.
"Ensuring you continue to think and act like a challenger requires a clarity of purpose, behaviours, and ways of working that is signed up to by every member of the team. We call that the CityFibre Way. Our work with eatbigfish to develop, refine and embed that in our team has been not only necessary, but truly energising. It has helped us push through the tough times and build a legacy we can all be proud of."
"Ensuring you continue to think and act like a challenger requires a clarity of purpose, behaviours, and ways of working that is signed up to by every member of the team. We call that the CityFibre Way. Our work with eatbigfish to develop, refine and embed that in our team has been not only necessary, but truly energising. It has helped us push through the tough times and build a legacy we can all be proud of."
The Unlock
Through a deep dive into what makes CityFibre tick, we were able to help identify the values and behaviours from the original CityFibre Way that should endure, as well as articulate the new behaviours that were fit for purpose for the company’s next chapter of growth. The new CityFibre Way was developed using our ‘Articles’ methodology, a concept inspired by the contracting of crews on pirate ships who would democratically agree their common code of conduct. Our collaborative approach ensured a real sense of authorship and ownership among the team, helping us to capture the language that would travel best through the organisation.
The Output
Along with facilitating alignment and developing the new CityFibre Way, we helped the team craft the executional plan to cascade their new values throughout the business, from the launch event for over 1000 to videos that encouraged peer-to-peer discussion, ensuring that it was understandable and usable at every level.
eatbigfish team
- Hugh Derrick, Partner
- Zoe Zambakides, Strategy Director
- Emily Watson, Project Manager
CityFibre teams
- Corporate Comms
- Internal Comms
- Customer Experience
- HR
- Operations
- Compliance
- Design
- Senior Management
The Unlock
Through a deep dive into what makes CityFibre tick, we were able to help identify the values and behaviours from the original CityFibre Way that should endure, as well as articulate the new behaviours that were fit for purpose for the company’s next chapter of growth. The new CityFibre Way was developed using our ‘Articles’ methodology, a concept inspired by the contracting of crews on pirate ships who would democratically agree their common code of conduct. Our collaborative approach ensured a real sense of authorship and ownership among the team, helping us to capture the language that would travel best through the organisation.
The Output
Along with facilitating alignment and developing the new CityFibre Way, we helped the team craft the executional plan to cascade their new values throughout the business, from the launch event for over 1000 to videos that encouraged peer-to-peer discussion, ensuring that it was understandable and usable at every level.
Impact
2000+
Employees reached at launch event
4
Senior team workshops
