The A.R.T. Framework
A structured approach to culture transformation that addresses root causes—not just symptoms. Three phases. One principle: systems change when you change the system.
Why most culture initiatives fail
After eight years managing disability claims, I can tell you exactly what predicts whether someone comes back to work successfully. It's not the diagnosis. It's not the treatment plan. It's whether they have a supervisor who knows how to support them, a team that welcomes them back, and a process that feels fair.
The employees who don't come back—or who go right back out again—have textbook accommodation plans and managers who say "glad you're back, we're slammed" on day one. The workplace they left is exactly the workplace they're returning to.
I see the same pattern in culture work more broadly. Organizations sense a problem—turnover, burnout, teams that won't collaborate—and immediately reach for interventions. Training programs. Wellness apps. Team-building events. None of it touches the structural conditions that created the problem.
A 2024 study of over 46,000 workers found that individual wellness interventions—mindfulness apps, resilience training, stress management programs—show essentially zero effect on organizational outcomes.
You can't train your way out of a systems problem. The A.R.T. Framework exists because culture transformation requires changing the system itself.
Each phase of A.R.T. builds on the one before. Skip the diagnostic phase, and you're solving the wrong problem. Skip participation, and you're imposing change rather than cultivating it. Skip capability transfer, and the work unravels the moment the consultant leaves.
The sequence matters.
Acknowledge
See the system clearly before trying to change it.
Most organizations rush to solutions. They sense a problem and immediately reach for interventions. The Acknowledge phase slows this down. Before we design solutions, we need to understand what's actually happening.
This means team-level psychological safety assessment using validated methodology—not individual surveys that miss how safety operates as a shared team perception. Most "culture assessments" measure individual sentiment and call it team health. That's like taking everyone's temperature and calling it a diagnosis.
It also means listening. Structured interviews with people across the organization. Observation of how decisions get made, who speaks in meetings, what happens when someone raises a concern. We look for patterns that engagement surveys never capture.
For organizations with high turnover or disability claims, the Acknowledge phase often reveals that "people problems" are actually workplace problems. We look at which teams and which supervisors show patterns—because those patterns are diagnostic. Your claims data and exit interviews are telling you something about your culture if you're willing to read it.
The Acknowledge phase often surfaces uncomfortable truths. The "communication problem" turns out to be a structural issue where information flows up but never down. The "difficult employee" turns out to be the only person telling the truth about a broken process. These insights reframe everything.
By the end of this phase, you'll have a clear diagnostic picture: where psychological safety exists, where it's absent, and what structural conditions are driving the difference.
Reclaim
Restore agency and voice through structural change.
Culture change imposed from above creates compliance, not commitment. The people living in the system need to help redesign it.
The Reclaim phase is where transformation actually happens—but not through training people to cope with dysfunction. We redesign the structures, processes, and norms that shape behavior.
This looks different in every organization. In one healthcare system, it meant restructuring how shift handoffs happened so nurses could raise safety concerns without time pressure. In a professional services firm, it meant changing how performance reviews incorporated input from peers, not just supervisors. In organizations with high disability claims, it often means redesigning return-to-work processes so supervisors are equipped to have the right conversations—and teams are prepared to welcome people back.
The common thread: we focus on changing conditions, not just changing people. When the environment makes speaking up safe and rewarded, people speak up. When the system makes collaboration easier than competition, people collaborate. When supervisors know how to support someone returning from leave, people actually return.
Throughout this phase, employees are active participants—not recipients of change, but co-designers. Working groups identify solutions. Pilots test new approaches. Feedback loops ensure we course-correct quickly.
Manager capability development runs parallel. Leaders learn to frame work effectively, respond to input without defensiveness, handle accommodation conversations, and model the vulnerability that makes psychological safety possible. These aren't soft skills—they're structural interventions at the leadership level.
Thrive
Build collective resilience that outlasts the engagement.
My goal is your independence, not a recurring consulting contract. The Thrive phase transfers capability so transformation continues after I leave.
This means building internal infrastructure: people who can continue facilitating psychological safety work, systems for ongoing measurement, processes for addressing issues before they become crises—or claims.
We identify and develop internal champions—not just HR, but line managers and informal leaders who can model and reinforce new norms. They learn to facilitate the conversations that keep psychological safety alive: how to surface concerns, how to respond to failure as learning, how to maintain candor under pressure, how to support someone through a difficult transition.
Measurement systems get embedded into existing rhythms. Quarterly pulse checks. Manager reflection practices. Team retrospectives that actually surface what's working and what isn't. The organization learns to monitor its own culture health—and to catch warning signs before they become turnover or disability claims.
We also plan for regression. Culture change isn't linear. New leaders arrive who don't understand the context. Crises create pressure to revert to old patterns. Thrive includes building organizational memory—documentation, onboarding processes, and refresh mechanisms that keep the work alive through transitions.
By the end of this phase, you have the internal capability to sustain and extend what we've built together. That's what success looks like.
Why This Approach Works
Three principles distinguish A.R.T. from conventional culture consulting—and from the wellness programs that keep failing.
Diagnosis before prescription
Solutions without understanding the problem are guesses. The Acknowledge phase ensures we solve the right problem—not the problem that's easiest to name or most visible from executive suites. Your turnover and disability data have stories to tell if you know how to read them.
Participation before imposition
People support what they help create. The Reclaim phase involves employees as co-designers, not recipients. Change sticks because the people living in the system shaped it. This is why top-down wellness programs fail and participatory interventions succeed.
Systems before individuals
Training programs are events. Structural change is systemic. We redesign conditions rather than educating people to cope with dysfunction. When the system changes, behavior follows—including the behaviors that drive people out the door or onto disability.
Research Foundation
Every element of the A.R.T. Framework is grounded in peer-reviewed organizational psychology research—not consultant hunches or trendy frameworks.
30 days
Earlier return with workplace intervention
Employees receiving workplace-focused interventions—supervisor support, team reintegration, job modifications—return to work 30 days faster than those receiving clinical treatment alone. The workplace component drives recovery.
— Steenstra et al., 2006
50%
Reduction with supervisor training
Combined supervisor and worker training programs reduce sickness absence by 50%. Supervisor support isn't just nice to have—it's one of the most modifiable factors in whether people stay, burn out, or go on leave.
— Linton et al., 2016
Zero
Effect from individual wellness programs
A study of 46,336 workers found that individual wellness interventions—mindfulness apps, resilience training, stress management—produce essentially zero effect on organizational outcomes. You can't fix a systems problem with individual solutions.
— Fleming, 2024
96.4%
Of assessments measure wrong level
Psychological safety is a shared team perception, not an individual attitude. Yet only 3.6% of published studies properly measure it at the team level with appropriate aggregation validation. Most "culture assessments" miss the construct entirely.
— Grailey et al., 2021
3.4x
Impact of coworker support
Coworker support shows an odds ratio of 3.4 for successful return-to-work—one of the largest effect sizes in the literature. Yet almost no interventions target it. The team environment matters as much as the supervisor relationship.
— Haveraaen et al., 2016
Participation drives commitment
Participatory organizational interventions show stronger effects on social capital, well-being, and sustained change than top-down implementations. People support what they help create—which is why the Reclaim phase centers employee co-design.
— Jakobsen et al., 2020
Ready to see where your organization stands?
The A.R.T. Assessment takes 5 minutes and gives you an immediate picture of psychological safety across three dimensions. Or book a call to discuss what you're seeing in your organization.
Want to see how we'd work together? View services and engagement options