Connecting Viewpoints. STRONGER CULTURE.
Turn different viewpoints into superior performance.
· Trusted by Fortune 500 clients · 30+ years · Reseach based · Thinkers50 recognised
An update from Fons & Team
A note from Fons on what we're working on, and why. It has been too quiet from our side for too long, though not for want of things to say. The work itself kept taking priority over writing about it. We often ask leaders not to choose between doing the work and making the thinking visible. That, of course, is our own dilemma too.When strategy isn't the problem
Our culture consultancy is called for when organisations have the right strategy, the right talent and the right intent — yet execution still stalls. Usually because culture is doing its quiet work. AI transformation, mergers & acquisitions, multi-generational teams, international expansion, operating model redesign and leadership transition all falter when organisations do not understand the tensions beneath the structure.
Typical situations we're asked to help with:
- A merger or acquisition where cultural integration will make or break the deal
- A strategy that is not translating into desired execution
- A culture conflict between business units
- A leadership team that is underperforming
What we do
How we turn culture into performance.
The central questions we always ask:
How does your organisations create superior performance from conflicting values?
How can we help your leadership fulfill its role to turn tension into creative progress?
Every engagement begins with a tension: legitimate needs pulling against each other, quietly eroding value and holding performance back. We make the pattern visible without blame, turn resistance into ownership, and create the conditions for behaviour to change.
Creating performance
Where culture directly shapes growth, innovation, and value creation.
- Strategy & Culture Alignment — Making strategy deliver.
- Innovation Culture — Innovation that delivers.
- M&A Value Creation — Realising deal value.
Enabling performance
Building the leadership, diversity, and execution capability needed to deliver it.
- Leadership for Performance — Leading under complexity.
- Cross-Border and Diversity Effectiveness — Performance through differences.
- Functional Performance – Risk Management — Risk control and organisational resilience.
- Functional Performance – Sustainability — Sustainable value creation.
Not everyone arrives here looking for consulting. Some come with a question, a tension, a research interest, a leadership challenge or a team conversation that feels stuck.
Whether you are a leader, student, academic, coach, consultant or practitioner, our work helps you understand why people and cultures see the world differently and how those differences can become a source of learning, connection and value.
Explore the thinking, use the tools, and build the skill of reconciling dilemmas..
Our thinking
Riding the Waves of Culture, and everything that followed.
For more than three decades, the work of our founders Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner has given leaders a language for understanding culture, values, leadership and strategic tension. The Seven Dimensions of Culture, the Dilemma Reconciliation Process, Values-to-Behavior and the wider body of books, tools and cases form a rare body of intellectual capital.
One fundamental belief drives their work: creative interaction between opposing perspectives producing new possibilities is the source of human progress. Their work brings together global consulting practice and academic depth, including Charles Hampden-Turner’s long-standing role at the University of Cambridge and doctoral work at Harvard Business School. It includes "Riding the Waves of Culture", a Thinkers50 Management Classic and translated into more than 20 languages with more than 300,000 copies sold, alongside 100+ further publications and proprietary models. The work has travelled through boardrooms, universities, leadership programmes, cross-cultural assignments, merger integrations and transformation agendas worldwide.
Their thinking is our foundation for advancing the broader understanding of culture through ongoing research, the development of practical tools, certification and education.
"The value of a value is in the degree to which it helps reconcile a dilemma."
"Organisational culture is the end result of competing values fighting for preference."
"Innovation is combining values that are not easily joined, therefore scarce, therefore profitable."
"While most models focus on recognising cultural differences only, we take advantage of those differences."
"Until you can point to what a value means on a Tuesday morning… you do not have a value. You have a slogan."
Clients
Our clients
We have been working for over three decades with Fortune 500 companies to support business leaders in dealing with the complexities of competing demands, across organisational and international borders by building meaningful connections.
Let's talk
Turn tension into traction in your organisation.
Together we determine and implement what is critical to get right to increase performance.
Other ways to work with us
→ Keynotes
Invite co-founder Fons Trompenaars or partner Bas Kemme to speak on performance, culture and leadership.
→ Training
Programs in Creating Your Organisation's Vision, Dilemma Reconciliation, and Servant Leadership.
Embed our models and tools inside your organisation with certified practitioners.