Polykala’s culture and conduct training enables participants to take safe and constructive action against inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. Our training promotes workplace cultures of decentralised social leadership, whereby staff (irrespective of position) are supported to stand up for a fair and inclusive professional environment. This is built on the principles of adaptive leadership, where leadership is viewed as a practice that mobilises people and systems to tackle tough challenges and thrive.

The training begins by exploring the dynamics of change and its consequences for organisational values and behaviour. Participants contend with what’s critical, negotiable and aspirational about their workplace culture. We then introduce diversity as a concept subject to the intersecting dynamics of power, privilege and preference before focussing specifically on the sources of misconduct and the values that underpin them. We then reflect on which behaviours participants perceive as ‘okay’ and ‘not okay’ within the organisation with a view to explore viewpoint diversity and build empathy.

We finally offer a set of tools and behavioural frameworks to overcome barriers that might prevent tackling misconduct and thus change workplace norms. We do this using group-work and dynamic role play where participants learn and apply concepts in real-time.