The Importance of Organisational Culture in Delivering Services in Complex, Multi-Stakeholder Programs
Amalgamotion gravitates to, and prides itself, on the value and experience it provides in governing and managing large, complex, multi-stakeholder programs.
Irrespective of the specific service an organisation plays in these types of programmes (vendor, contractor, 3rd party supplier, government agency), being a supplier isn’t just about delivering a product or service—it’s about how it’s done.
Organisational culture can be the difference between enabling a supportive, aligned, and collaborative environment as opposed to one that is dissonant, politically charged and challenged by otherwise avoidable, inefficient, and frustrating challenges, conflicts, and potential roadblocks.
Organisational culture is critical to enabling the success of large, complex, multi-stakeholder programs. Amalgamotions’ experience has shown the following factors at play on most large programs.
Culture Shapes Relationships
When multiple organisations come together—each with their own priorities, ways of working, and pressures—culture becomes a key factor in how well they align. Whilst each organisation inevitably has its own interests to protect, it’s vital that those interests are balanced with what’s best for the programme, and in turn, the client and end-customer.
Amalgamotions approach is to encourage, by example, all organisations to be aligned around a common culture, underpinned by values that foster transparency, accountability, and adaptability.
This assists all parties in integrating more effectively into a complex ecosystem that moves at pace to achieve performance in delivering project outcomes.
Take, for example, a government or infrastructure program where government agencies, contractors, and third-party suppliers must work together for years. If a supplier’s culture prioritises short-term wins over long-term trust, they may cut corners or withhold information to protect their position.
In contrast, a supplier that embraces openness and shared success will build relationships that lead to smoother collaboration, fewer disputes, and better performance and better outcomes.
What We Do: At Amalgamotion, we take the time in the initial stages of the program to facilitate the development of a common charter that aligns all organisations in the ecosystem to clearly aligned strategies and objectives that are underpinned by values and behaviours. These then serve all parties as a reference point as to how the organisations cooperate and collaborate to deliver the common goal.
Culture Impacts Problem-Solving
In complex programs, things will go wrong—technical issues, shifting requirements, and unforeseen issues and risks are inevitable.
A supplier with a blame-oriented or siloed culture will struggle in this environment and may hide problems, resist feedback, or slow down decision-making. On the other hand, a culture of proactive problem-solving and continuous improvement enables suppliers to collaboratively navigate challenges effectively.
For instance, in a major commercial transformation programme Amalgamotion managed, one supplier’s engineers discovered a significant flaw in an operational process that had been transitioned over to the outsourced service provider.
Because their company culture encouraged transparency and collaboration, they raised the issue early, worked with stakeholders to find a solution, and prevented a costly failure down the line.
Another supplier on the same project, with a more rigid and defensive culture, avoided admitting mistakes, which caused avoidable delays and presented a risk to end customer experience.
What We Do: At Amalgamotion, prior to commencing the transformation, we seek to align all parties to an agreed set of processes that encourage collaboration, a joint approach to outcome focused problem solving, and mitigate the risk of a blame/shame or finger pointing culture.
Culture Defines Reputation and Long-Term Success
Suppliers in multi-stakeholder environments are often judged not just by what they deliver, but by how they work within the broader ecosystem. A strong organisational culture—one that values integrity, flexibility, and partnership—becomes a competitive advantage. It leads to repeat contracts, stronger client relationships, and a reputation that attracts the best talent.
Large multi-stakeholder programs are complex, and their success is critically dependent on the effective collaboration and interworking between all the parties in the program ecosystem, each with their own respective roles to play.
This effectively creates interdependent relationships, each of which creates a co-dependency for success. Aligning each party’s organisational culture to this environment is the key to unlocking successful program outcomes.
What we’ve done: To align our culture, through a series of workshops involving all employees, Amalgamotion identified five core values that show our culture in our ways of working and behaviours to support the successful navigation of the challenges often faced in complex programs.
The first three of these are:
- Audacity: Not being afraid to challenge if actions, attitudes, or agendas are not serving the best interest of the programme, initiative, or objective.
- Veracity: A conformity to facts and accuracy. This is only achievable with the provision of right systems, processes, governance structures and the experience and subject matter expertise to be data driven and evidence based.
- Humility: The quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance. The humanistic yet impartial and unemotional that brings balance to the audacity and veracity.
These three values operate as interdependent cogs in a wheel that are unwaveringly supported by our values of:
- Unity: The state of being united or joined as a whole. Regardless of company loyalties, agendas, or self-interest, in the context of complex multi-party programs, transformations or strategic initiatives all parties (Clients, Suppliers, Service Providers and Vendors).
- Passion: A strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object, or concept. Regardless of the risks, challenges, conflicts that all complex, multi-party programs will no-doubt face through the lifetime of the programme, it is critical that we remain invested, committed and passionate about the Why and What of the programs objectives and outcomes we are striving to achieve.
These values frequently show up individually and collectively as relatable reference points for our culture and the “how we do things around here.” Internally, this means how we manage our own team – from recruitment, training, recognition, leadership, and communication. Externally, it is how we provide services to our clients and partners.
In complex programs, culture isn’t a soft, abstract concept—it is a real-world factor that drives efficiency, trust, and resilience. Suppliers that get it right don’t just deliver; they perform, and they thrive.