CULTURE IS HOW WE MOVE
What does it take to move 35,000 people across 12 African markets
from surface alignment to true cultural connectedness?
For Absa, the answer wasn’t a better cascade or a new campaign.
It was something more difficult – and more powerful:
a values movement rooted in shared meaning.
In a hybrid, federated organisation where purpose was declared but not yet deeply lived, something essential was missing: a unifying cultural code that made colleagues feel seen, connected, and proud to belong.
TPA was invited to help close that gap – not just between leaders and teams, but between aspiration and the lived experience of 35,000 colleagues.
WHAT WE BUILT
We began not with solutions, but with listening. Over four months, we engaged deeply – through townhall reflections, leadership forums, EVP insights, and the lived experiences of all Absa colleagues, in all countries.
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What emerged was unmistakable:
people didn’t want another rollout.
They wanted to connect, belong, and believe again.
This insight gave birth to a culture and values journey anchored in three essential shifts:
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From permission to ownership
From disconnect to shared identity
From values-as-words to values-as-movement
Each phase was built for participation and proof:
DIAGNOSTICS
surfaced cultural tensions and truth gaps – from legacy behaviours to policy drift
CO-CREATION WORKSHOPS
brought EXCO, SLG, Ambassadors, and People Leads into the design process
CULTURE PLAYBOOKS, TOOLKITS,
AND RITUALS
made the new values – Trust, Resourceful, Stewardship, Inclusion, Courage – real in the flow of work
BEHAVIOURAL FRAMEWORKS
gave teams the language to live the shift
CULTURAL
TENSION MAPPING
helped business areas unpack what needed to change in practices, not just posters
WHAT CHANGED?
Leaders stopped just talking alignment and started living and role modelling it. Conversations got real. Teams got intentional. And across the organisation, something powerful started happening:
Colleagues stopped asking,
“What are the values?”
They started saying,
“This is what we believe. This is my Absa.”
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Because culture isn’t something you announce or project onto a screen. It is something you live into – one brave conversation, one reimagined policy, one co-created moment at a time.
At Absa, that’s exactly what is happening.