Steve Simpson has been described as 'Australia's leading corporate culture authority' and 'the leading Australian Customer Care Guru'. He recognises that great corporate cultures enable strategic goals to be achieved and fuel employee engagement. Great corporate cultures create a measurable point of difference in terms of individual and organisational performance. Importantly, great corporate cultures can’t be copied.
But they don’t just happen by chance.
Current work
Steve Simpson has been invited to speak at conferences around the world for his truly unique insights into workplace cultures and how to unleash the potential that lies within.
Whether it’s creating a culture to deliver great service, helping leaders understand their role in shaping the culture, helping teams perform better, equipping people to revel in change initiatives or getting people to take safety seriously, Steve reveals how his concept of UGRs (unwritten ground rules) can be used to effect lasting, positive change.
Steve’s insights are not based on theory. In addition to his conference presentations, he has worked in-house with a range of organisations on different continents over extended period of time. He knows the pitfalls, traps, objections and issues that emerge when people are challenged to re-think the ‘way we do things around here’.
Author:
Steve is the author of two books including UGRs: Cracking the Corporate Culture Code. He is the co-author to a further three books, the latest being A Culture Turned.
He has a Masters Degree from the University of Alberta and was invited to undertake an Australian city lecture tour to co-present with Harvard University Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter.
Steve has worked with organisations in countries including the UK, the US, the UAE, South Africa and various Asian countries.
Awards:The National Speakers Association of Australia: recognised Steve’s achievements by awarding him the prestigious 2015 Australian Educator of the Year Award.
Talking Points
_Cracking the Corporate Culture Code
Steve shares his concept of UGRs (unwritten ground rules) and how these constitute an organisation's culture. Most importantly, Steve shows how the UGR concept can be used to transform cultures and performance.
_Cracking the Corporate Culture Code
Creating a Culture of Service
Underpinning every move to improve customer service is the organisation's culture. Steve shows how to ensure customer service initiatives reap maximum benefits by getting the culture right.
Creating a Culture of Service
Leading Cultures
Culture is the number one issue for the world’s business leaders according to the latest Deloitte Global Capital Human Trends Report. Steve shows how leaders can manage their workplace culture to enable strategic goals to be achieved.
Leading Cultures
Change Fatigued? Look at Your Culture!
It's not uncommon for change initiatives to fail to achieve their pre-defined goals. The most common reason? The organisation's culture. Steve shows how workplaces can be transformed from being change resistant to a place where people embrace change.
Change Fatigued? Look at Your Culture!
If You Think Safety is Important, Think About Your UGRs
A great deal has been invested into ensuring people conform to safe work practices. Yet despite these investments, safety breaches occur all too often. Steve shows how UGRs impact on safety, and what can be done to lock in a genuine safety oriented culture.
If You Think Safety is Important, Think About Your UGRs
Transforming Workplace Cultures - Introducing UGRs
Employees operate according to a series of UGRs - unwritten ground rules - a sort of folklore about how the business operates and how things get done.Transforming Workplace Cultures - Introducing UGRs
All too often these are negative and work at cross- purposes to what management is trying to achieve. Furthermore, business leaders and senior managers are oftentimes unaware uGR's even exist, and consequently have a rose-tinted view of the company's culture. The UGRs will be formed by staff observing managers' words and actions, and whether they live up to the precepts they have laid down.
This session will show you how to identify the ground rules at work in your organisation and change negative perceptions into positives that the whole team can endorse and follow.
Creating A Service Revolution
So many companies promise to deliver great service but fail to do this. This presentation by Steve Simpson can change all that.
Creating A Service Revolution
In The Driver's Seat - Leading Culture Change
There is a school of thought that the single most important responsibility of leaders in an organisation is to create the right culture.In The Driver's Seat - Leading Culture Change
This presentation explores the role of leaders in creating and sustaining a great culture. It begins by Steve showing startling results gained from his research across a range of organisations into improvements that would be realised by improving the culture.
After introducing his concept of unwritten ground rules (UGRs) Steve shows how to unearth the prevailing UGRs linked to those aspects of the culture most critical to the organisation's future success.
Most importantly Steve shares with leaders specific actions they can take to shift the culture (and UGRs) to drive the organisation's strategic direction.
Steve draws on his practical experiences with clients including McLaren Automotive in the UK, Kmart Australia and NZ, and Toyota Australia.
UGRs And Change Management
How many of us have heard someone say something like "hold your breath for long enough and the moves for change will fade away"? People verbalising this are actually articulating an unwritten ground rule (UGR) associated with change.UGRs And Change Management
In essence, what people are saying here is that there have been attempts in the past to implement change, but little eventuated. So people's recollection of events from the past creates UGRs that lock-in, and will make change more difficult into the future.
It's in this context that Steve creates a new angle on change management in his presentation. Often people pay lip service to the idea that the culture must be right for change to occur. They pay lip service to this because they are unsure about how to change the prevailing culture.
That's where Steve helps create clarity. He introduce the UGRs concept, shows how UGRs prevent change, and gives practical guidance on what leaders can do shift the UGRs, and the culture to be more receptive to change.
Video
Profile of Steve Simpson
International speaker Steve Simpson shares insights into how organisations can truly differentiate themselves based on an outstanding workplace culture. See why Steve is in demand across the world. Steve Simpson has been described as 'Australia's leading corporate culture authority' and 'the leading Australian Customer Care Guru'. He recognises that great corporate cultures enable strategic goals to be achieved and fuel employee engagement. Great corporate cultures create a measurable point of difference in terms of individual and organisational performance. Importantly, great corporate cultures can’t be copied.McLaren Automotive, Workplace Culture and UGRs
The impact of UGRs at McLaren Automotive Steve Simpson has been described as 'Australia's leading corporate culture authority' and 'the leading Australian Customer Care Guru'. He recognises that great corporate cultures enable strategic goals to be achieved and fuel employee engagement. Great corporate cultures create a measurable point of difference in terms of individual and organisational performance. Importantly, great corporate cultures can’t be copied.I was really impressed by your ability to command the audience's attention with humour as well as a profound knowledge of your subject. The concept of unwritten ground rules came alive with ... keep reading Service Excellence Study Tours, UK
I had the great pleasure of attending one of Steve's presentations last week at the European Customer Management Conference in London - I am so pleased that I chose his session. The UGRs concept has given me the key I have been searching for....the concept is simple, practical and engaging/humorous - it will certainly support me in driving the behavioural changes we seek. Steve was inspirational and of course the content of his talk was extremely thought provoking.... Thank you so much Steve you are certainly on my wave length...
One of the highlights for me of the 2003 conference was Steve Simpson's session " Strategies to Create a Culture of Service: The Unwritten Ground Rules". Steve's ability to combine a practical perspective on developing corporate culture with his excellent presentational skills made this a memorable session.
I knew, when I read the conference brief that Steve would be brilliant and I wasn’t disappointed! The room was packed and he delivered an enthusiastic, funny and informative presentation. I’ve already talked to a company about their UGRs and they’ve found lots which hold them back. Excellent!
Steve's talk captured my attention from the start and the concept of UGR’s really rang true. I rushed off after his talk to buy his book from the bookstall - and he was the only speaker who had that effect! We have already started using the concept within my team
Steve Simpson is an excellent presenter. He combines great energy and enthusiasm with a strong relevance to the subject matter. His punchy style mixes humour with hard cutting facts that ease the learning process for his audience.
Many thanks for a great session. Your presentation was alive and valuable. One of our key challenges in growing an organisation in the UK is the ability to sustain the culture and I have already spoken to two of our General Managers about UGRs and their affect on our culture. Thank you.
To say that I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation on Friday is an understatement. How wonderful to put a name to Corporate Culture with UGRs. I am sure that everyone who had the pleasure of listening to your very captivating and inspiring presentation will put their business to the UGRs test to see how they rate and make some changes to their organisational culture if necessary. UGRs apply to every business so your presentation was very appropriate to reach a wide cross sector. I know I have become wiser for having the privilege of listening to you and hope its not in the too distant future that I again have the opportunity.
I was fortunate to attend a customer’s function recently where Steve Simpson was the guest speaker... Steve's ability and skill to immediately snatch our attention with an exciting presentation style, full of movement, tone and excitement which obviously his natural effervescent style, had us all enthralled in UGRs. Steve is passionate about UGRs and was able to impart the same enthusiasm to the audience as many attendees were discussing UGRs well into the social session at the conclusion of the day.
I can only pen the too often used phrase that a light was turned on after hearing your presentation - which was fantastic both in content and delivery from yourself.
After sitting through hours of dry information fed to us by PowerPoint presentations and pie charts, it was a breath of fresh air when the guest speaker, Steve Simpson, bounded to the podium with an energy that had the whole room responding to him. A good mix of humour, information and audience interaction made sure that Steve's presentation on UGRs was the one we were all talking about at the post-function drinks.
Your research on UGRs and your ability to present your findings in such an informative and relaxed way have now made the task of cultural change so much easier. The beauty of your work is that it can, and should, be shared with every member of the organisation. Everyone's accountable and can't help but take ownership of the impact their individual actions have on the true culture of their organisation. Great stuff.
Congratulations and thanks for an excellent presentation. I have attended many Customer Service type conferences - your presentation gave the subject plenty of humour, passion, experiences, knowledge and "The Journey Ahead". You kept your audience focused and engaged for the entire presentation. Very few speakers have those talents. I look forward to your next Conference.
I was really impressed by your ability to command the audience's attention with humour as well as a profound knowledge of your subject. The concept of unwritten ground rules came alive with your examples and will remain as a key ingredient in all my work on company cultures.
I have been exposed to a large number of speakers on a wide range of customer service/management topics. Steve Simpson is a motivating, energetic, knowledgeable speaker who provided a very different slant on the usual topics with his UGR concept. I thoroughly enjoyed his presentation and have begun to focus on instilling positive UGRs with my team. Thanks Steve for an opportunity to re-energise and refresh my own approach.
You've renewed my enthusiasm and I can't wait to get back to implement many of the suggestions made at the seminar. You have a unique speaking style, which I thoroughly enjoyed. You involve the audience and made us believe anything is possible and that we can each make a huge difference in our own way. You're clearly passionate about your subject and your enjoyment is palpable. Thanks for sharing that with us.
At this year's HDI Conference in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to attend Steve Simpson's workshop on "Unwritten Ground Rules." His presentation was a highlight of the conference. Steve's sense of humour, credibility, and subject matter gave me pages of notes to use in my own consulting and training. I would recommend Steve to anyone who needs to better understand the complicated, vital, and often-misunderstood world of corporate culture.
I had the great pleasure of attending one of Steve's presentations last week at the European Customer Management Conference in London - I am so pleased that I chose his session. The UGRs concept has given me the key I have been searching for....the concept is simple, practical and engaging/humorous - it will certainly support me in driving the behavioural changes we seek. Steve was inspirational and of course the content of his talk was extremely thought provoking.... Thank you so much Steve you are certainly on my wave length...
I attended a seminar recently at the Perth Concert Hall. One of the principal speakers was Steve Simpson whose presentation I considered to be one of the best that I have ever seen not only in Australia but around the world. I have no hesitation in saying that Steve Simpson is one of the best in the business. He is so impressive. I commend him highly.
Steve would have to be one of the most energetic and motivational speakers I have encountered. Not only is his subject matter relevant, delightfully insightful, incredibly well researched and fresh, his delivery is second to none. I can't wait to start working on our own UGRs. Thanks Steve.
have no hesitation in ranking Steve Simpson as one of the best public speakers that I have ever encountered. His recent presentation on "Unwritten Ground Rules" at the Australian Institute of Building Surveyor's state conference was nothing short of excellent. His content was easy to understand, relevant and at times humorous. Further, his presentation skills kept the audience completely captivated and focused on the message being conveyed for the whole hour. I certainly hope that I get to experience another one of Steve's presentations in the not too distant future.
