How do we work with our customers?

We realized that we needed to transform our entire operation in both structure and culture to continue to be successful – and we chose Gaia because they could truly be a partner in all these different parts and bring it all together.

We started by deepening our mission, why we exist and what we want to achieve. Based on that, we identified our key strategic shifts. Next, we chiseled out our most important core processes as well as the organizational structure and governance model that would be most helpful for us to succeed in what we wanted.

Integrated with that whole journey, we of course also needed to work with the people and our mindset, so in parallel Gaia supported us in our management team development, leadership development and cultural shift. Working from a holistic perspective and with systems thinking were crucial aspects of our transformational success.

Our collaboration with Gaia was based on a curiously exploratory and challenging partnership. For me as the head of the municipality, Gaia’s main consultant became a strategic reflection partner who, in addition to sparring me in relation to the challenges we faced, also opened the door to exciting networks and relationships in different sectors of society.

Together with Gaia, I worked with my management team where we shaped the strategic direction of the municipality while developing as a group and in our personal leadership. In addition to this, we established a systematic way of working with other managers and key people.

Gaia was also the municipality’s partner when the political and civil service leadership together formed a new governance model.

I had never worked with Gaia when they won a framework contract procured through the HR function.

To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations when I first met the lead consultant, but I quickly realized that I was meeting a consultant who understood the context in which I was operating as a head of a government agency.

When it became evident that the agency’s focus needed to change, the joint operational and leadership development program, which we designed together with Gaia and which involved most of the agency’s managers and key personnel, became a very important element in our change process.

When I, as CEO of a medium-sized company in the tourism industry, realized that I, together with the owner, board, and other management, needed to seriously test our strategic direction, I contacted one of Gaia’s consultants on recommendation.

Gaia became a partner in both the board’s and management’s work on deepening and in some respects changing the strategic direction while strengthening our ability to co-create with each other.

I dare to say that if we had not carried out this initiative before the pandemic broke out, we would not have had the ability to come out strong and then perform at an all-time high in both 2022 and 2023. Gaia was also an important source of inspiration in finding an energizing way to involve the company’s employees in our change work.