How Plan Group partnered with Human Synergistics to preserve its culture through rapid growth, strengthen leadership and drive sustainable business performance.
Founded in 2012, Plan Group is an Australian construction management company specialising in commercial construction, fitouts and refurbishments. Operating across Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, Sydney and Brisbane, the business delivers projects across diverse sectors and was recognised among Australia’s Top 50 builders in 2026.
As the business expanded, its leaders recognised the importance of preserving its people-first culture while building the leadership capability needed for sustainable growth.
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The Challenge
For Plan Group, growth brought both opportunity and a new set of leadership challenges.
- Strong Foundations – The founders had built a successful organisation grounded in trust, collaboration and positive relationships.
- Rapid Expansion – Growth across locations and teams made preserving Plan Group’s distinctive culture increasingly challenging.
- New Expertise – An external advisory board was established to guide the next phase of growth and recommended a more structured approach to culture and leadership.
- Protecting What Worked – The challenge wasn’t fixing a broken culture, but ensuring leadership behaviours and organisational culture could support increasing scale and complexity.
The Solution
In 2023, Plan Group partnered with Human Synergistics, introducing the Organisational Culture Inventory® (OCI) alongside the Life Styles Inventory™ (LSI) to strengthen its culture and leadership effectiveness.
The OCI provided a measurable picture of Plan Group’s current and ideal culture, while the LSI helped leaders understand how their behaviours influenced others.
Together, these tools enabled Plan Group to:
- Measure Culture – Identify strengths, opportunities and employee aspirations.
- Develop Leaders – Build awareness of individual behaviours and their impact on others.
- Create a Shared Language – Use the Human Synergistics Circumplex to encourage
Constructive conversations. - Track Progress – Measure cultural change and guide ongoing improvement.
From Insight to Everyday Action
The OCI and LSI have helped Plan Group connect individual behaviour with organisational performance.
The Circumplex now provides a common language for discussing culture, while OCI results are incorporated into the organisation’s annual balanced scorecard alongside financial, people, client, safety and operational measures.
These insights influence leadership development, employee wellbeing initiatives and strategic decisions. Culture is no longer simply something Plan Group measures. It has become part of how the business operate and plans for the future.
The Results
Since its first OCI measurement in 2024, Plan Group has experienced significant business growth alongside its focus on building a more Constructive culture.
Below Plan Group receives the 2026 Cultural Sustainability Award, presented in Melbourne by
Human Synergistics Managing Director, David Byrum.
Watch Tony Davidson, Director and Chief Strategy Officer, and Nikki Sorensen, People & Culture Manager of Plan Group at our 27th Culture & Leadership Conference below.