Culture and Transformation2019New York; Technology function
When technology changes fast, culture has to move with it.
Bringing 200 Morgan Stanley Technology Directors together to turn culture from something discussed into something collectively owned.
The impact
Real results. Lasting change.
200
Technology Directors
Radical Candour: a new level of healthy challenge
Collective Ownership: culture shaped from within
- 200 Technology Directors
- sponsored by the Chief Technology Officer
Culture couldn’t be something happening around them.
At a time of significant change for Morgan Stanley, Technology needed its leaders to do more than respond to transformation; they needed to shape the culture required to deliver it. Sponsored by the Chief Technology Officer in New York, the challenge was to bring 200 Technology Directors into an unusually open conversation about how the function really operated: where ownership was strong, where healthy challenge was being muted, whose voices were heard, and what needed to change for the function to perform at its best.
Turning 200 voices into one candid conversation.
CorporateDNA began with extensive pre-work, including senior stakeholder interviews and a focused assessment of the function’s values, cultural patterns and leadership dynamics. Those insights became the foundation for a highly participative leadership experience: not a presentation about culture, but a space in which leaders could examine it together. We introduced radical candour, healthy challenge, ownership and cognitive diversity, deliberately creating conditions for different perspectives across the 200 directors to be heard rather than allowing hierarchy or dominant voices to shape the conversation. The experience was amplified through sporting metaphors and sporting inspiration, bringing to life lessons about performance, challenge, team contribution and collective responsibility. The Chairman also joined as a guest contributor, connecting the conversation to the wider leadership and organisational context.
CorporateDNA services
- Culture and Transformation
- Leadership Development
- Large-Scale Facilitation
- Cognitive Diversity
- Team Effectiveness
From talking about culture to owning it.
The intervention shifted culture from an abstract organisational idea into something leaders could see in their everyday choices, conversations and behaviours. It gave directors permission to challenge more constructively, surface different perspectives and examine the responsibility each leader carried for the culture around them. Most importantly, it reframed culture as something the Technology function didn’t simply inherit from Morgan Stanley, but something 200 influential leaders collectively created every day.
We operate in a dynamic environment that changes by the minute. Technology is no longer something that supports the business, it is at the core of our business. I want the MD conference to be the foundation for all 150 Directors being aligned on mindsets and behaviours needed for this Culture transformation within Tech.
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