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Inspiration, inclusion and innovation Culture has been at the heart of far-reaching business transformation at Jacobs, writes Shelie Gustafson
Transformation starts with culture. This has been the reality for us at Jacobs on our journey to evolve from an engineering and construction firm to a technology-forward solutions provider. The journey started when Steve Demetriou was hired as the Jacobs chair and chief executive. It didn’t take long for Demetriou and other executives to recognize that a transformation was critical if the company was to grow and compete in a rapidly changing global arena. “When I joined Jacobs in 2015, I worked with our leadership team to redefine our strategy. There was a lack of growth and challenges associated with mergers and acquisitions, and it was time for a change,” says Demetriou. “We set a foundation around three constructs as we moved forward with our new strategy in 2016: build a high-performance culture; transform the core; and grow profitably.” As a professional services organization, revenue at Jacobs is generated largely by talent, with 52,000 people in 40 countries. We needed to transform from the inside out, with culture at the core of our strategy. The initial strategy set in motion our acquisition of CH2M at the end of 2017, followed by the divestiture of our energy, chemicals and resources business, and by additional acquisitions in 2019 – all of which increased the intensity of the required cultural transformation.
Inspiration, inclusion and innovation were the three pillars of Jacobs’ culture transformation Dialogue Q2 2020
The approach to culture change
“The CH2M acquisition was a pivotal point. We all know that most mergers and acquisitions don’t live up to their stated objectives, and usually this is because of a failure to align the two organizational cultures,” says Ben Almond, now vice-president of Canada operations for Jacobs – and, as a CH2M employee, a member of the integration team. “Many employees had spent their entire careers with CH2M, and there was also the shift from an employee-owned to a
Helping individuals be their best selves, with the team capitalizing on their uniqueness, is a game changer
publicly traded company.” Demetriou and his team committed to leading the CH2M integration differently. Culture change was core to the successful integration of the two companies. As one of the key workstreams of the integration management office, executive sponsors from both companies came together to lead the effort. Inspiration, inclusion and innovation were identified as the three pillars of Jacobs’ culture transformation. Research shows that innovation comes from people with different experiences, backgrounds and thought processes. Just putting a group of people in a room isn’t enough: how they work and think together makes the difference. Inclusion unifies and is the activator of Jacobs’ diversity, which is why we put the ‘I’ before ‘D’ – inclusion and diversity. We must be exceptional at creating an environment where all employees feel valued, have a sense of belonging and can be their best. Helping individuals be their best selves, with the team capitalizing on their uniqueness, is a game changer. Inclusion at Jacobs is a way of living and working together. We call it TogetherBeyond, and we take a holistic approach in making employees part of our inclusion journey. It started at the top with the senior leadership team; we then pulled numerous levers to accelerate the transformation, including empowering eight employee network groups, providing training for all employees, and reviewing policies, practices and programmes