How a shared vision helped a global oil and gas major stabilize culture during a period of profound change
When a global oil and gas major introduced a revised company strategy centered on long-term transformation and sustainability, leaders quickly saw that the shift was landing unevenly across the organization.
The most acute challenge emerged within Production & Operations (P&O)—the upstream and downstream businesses that form the core of the company. Spanning exploration, drilling, production, refining, terminals, pipelines, and regions around the world, P&O was not adjacent to the strategy—it was the core enabler of it. The performance, capability, and confidence of P&O would ultimately determine whether the strategy succeeded.
Employee feedback and pulse survey results revealed a troubling pattern. Confidence in the future was declining, clarity on how individual roles connected to the strategy was weakening, and belief that the changes underway would strengthen the business was low. Within P&O, these indicators lagged the rest of the organization—an unusual and concerning signal for the company’s primary value engine.
This uncertainty was already having real effects. Leaders were seeing erosion in trust, rising anxiety about the future, increased retention risk, and early impacts on engagement and performance. What P&O needed was not more information about the strategy—but a way to restore confidence, pride, and belief in the work.
Crop Circle was brought in to support P&O through this moment of uncertainty.
Working as embedded partners alongside senior operational leaders, regional teams, and corporate communications, we helped the organization articulate a clear, credible vision for P&O’s future—one that employees could believe in and leaders could lead with confidence.
This work was done hand in hand with leaders across the business. Our role was not to arrive with a pre-defined solution, but to co-create one: listening closely, shaping insight into action, and ensuring shared ownership at every stage.
Establishing a Unifying Narrative
At the center of the work was the creation of a new P&O narrative, known internally as We Are P&O.
Developed collaboratively with senior leaders, the narrative was designed as a forward-looking vision—an articulation of who P&O is, why it matters, and what it must become in order to deliver the company’s strategy. It was intentionally not a script or a communications campaign. Instead, it served as a framework leaders could adapt to their own context while maintaining a consistent and credible story.
A central idea anchored the narrative: P&O is the heart of the company.
At a time when many employees felt reduced to “the cash engine” funding a future they weren’t sure they belonged to, this framing mattered deeply. It reasserted that P&O was not simply supporting the strategy—it was the engine that would make it real.
The narrative was structured around clear themes that described:
This thematic structure allowed content, conversations, and examples to be built deliberately against each element of the narrative, while giving leaders the flexibility to bring it to life authentically.
Naming the Fear: Mythbusters
As part of developing the narrative, we worked with leaders to surface the questions already dominating conversations across P&O.
Rather than avoiding them, we addressed them directly through a deliberate Mythbusters approach. This work tackled assumptions and concerns such as:
By naming these fears openly—and grounding responses in facts, strategy, and real examples—the organization sent a powerful signal: these questions were legitimate, and it was safe to talk about them.
This shifted conversations away from rumor and anxiety and toward realism, trust, and shared understanding.
Building Momentum Through Employee Advocates
As the narrative took shape, we were deliberate about how it would be introduced into the organization.
Rather than relying solely on formal leadership channels, we worked with P&O leaders to identify a group of employee advocates across the business—individuals who were widely respected within their teams, not because of title or grade level, but because they were trusted voices and informal thought leaders.
These advocates represented a cross-section of regions, functions, and roles. We engaged them early, using their feedback to pressure-test the narrative. Just as importantly, these individuals played a visible role in helping launch the narrative. By introducing We Are P&O through people employees already trusted, the organization reinforced that this was not a top-down exercise, but a shared story shaped by the business itself.
Launching the Narrative at Scale
The launch of We Are P&O was intentionally structured around three leadership conversations:
Why – Renewing our pride
Focused on reaffirming P&O’s role at the heart of the company and restoring belief in the value of the work. This phase included senior leader interviews and engagement sessions that reinforced P&O’s central role in delivering the company strategy, including visible involvement from the CEO.
What – Becoming competitive
Centered on aligning leaders around the realities of the strategy, including cost consciousness, carbon culture, and reimagining how the business would be financed and operated going forward.
How – Building capability and careers
Focused on talent, skills, and career pathways, delivered in close alignment with people and capability teams to reinforce that there was a future for P&O talent—and a role to play in shaping it.
Making the Vision Visible and Accessible
To reinforce the narrative at scale, a comprehensive set of supporting materials was developed in close collaboration with regional teams, including:
This ensured employees could see themselves—and their part of the business—reflected in the story.
Making the Vision Human: People of P&O
As the narrative took hold, it became clear that words and frameworks alone would not be enough.
Through deep engagement with teams across P&O, one truth stood out: the people doing this work were exceptional—highly skilled, deeply committed, and motivated by pride and purpose.
The People of P&O video series was created to honor that humanity.
Rather than focusing on projects or performance metrics, the series centered on individuals sharing deeply personal stories connected to different elements of the narrative—stories rooted in belief, experience, pride, responsibility, family, and purpose. Some explored sustainability directly; others focused on inclusion, legacy, or what the work meant to them beyond the job.
By highlighting the humanity behind the work, the narrative stopped being abstract. It became lived, visible, and real. The series resonated strongly across the organization and was later recognized with an industry award.
Following the launch of We Are P&O and People of P&O, pulse survey results showed measurable improvement across key indicators of confidence and belief within P&O.
Over the following year:
Leaders also reported a noticeable shift in tone—from uncertainty and defensiveness to greater openness, pride, and willingness to engage in conversations about the future.
This work succeeded because it treated culture as a matter of identity—not messaging.
Rather than rushing to change behaviors, the organization focused first on restoring meaning and pride. By positioning P&O as the core of the strategy, addressing fear openly, engaging trusted voices across the business, and grounding the vision in real people and real work, belief was rebuilt.
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