From vision
to behavior
Hoe Skils used OBM
to strengthen the connection
between vision, leadership, and daily practice
Summary
How do you keep a strong vision alive as an organization grows? That was the challenge Skils faced. Managing Director Ulrika Leons shares how Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) helped strengthen the connection between vision, leadership, and daily practice. An honest story about the challenges of growth and the power of behavioral science.
In this case story
> A distinctive approach | The challenge of a growing organization.
> Looking beyond knowledge | How a new perspective on behavior made the difference.
> Making behavior visible | Turning vision into observable behavior.
> When ownership changed | How the vision became part of everyday leadership.
> A shared language | How a common language changed conversations about behavior.
> A different way of leading | Shaping behavior rather than discussing intentions.
> Lessons for growing organizations | Behavior: The bridge between strategy and culture.
Growth doesn't change an organization's vision. It changes how consistently that vision is put into practice.
For years, Skils didn't have to wonder whether its vision was alive within the organization. People worked closely together. New ideas spread through everyday conversations. Managers saw what was happening in their teams, colleagues challenged one another, and when practice drifted away from the organization's vision, someone usually noticed.
Growth gradually changed that. Not because the vision became less important. Not because people became less committed. And not because the organization was performing poorly. The issue was much more subtle. As Skils continued to expand, it became harder to know whether the organization's way of thinking was still being reflected consistently in everyday practice. Managing Director Ulrika Leons can still pinpoint the moment that made her stop and think. "One of my management team members said, 'The gap between the vision you model as a leader and what we see in daily practice is becoming larger.'" It was an uncomfortable observation, not because she disagreed with it, but because it touched the very reason Skils had become successful.
Unlike many psychology practices, Skils specializes in work-focused psychological treatment. Its psychologists don't only help clients recover from psychological complaints; they also help them make a sustainable return to work. That requires more than clinical expertise. It also calls on psychologists to approach their work in a particular way. As Ulrika explains: "We ask our psychologists to do work they weren't trained for, and that isn't necessarily why they became psychologists in the first place. As an organization, we therefore have to add something, not only knowledge and skills, but also mindset."
For years, this vision had been the foundation of what made Skils unique, and the company invested heavily in helping employees embrace that philosophy. Internal development programs, knowledge-sharing sessions, dedicated "DNA days," and an extensive digital onboarding program all served the same purpose: helping new colleagues understand not only what Skils does, but how it believes the work should be done in line with that vision.
For a long time, that approach worked well. But as the organization grew, something became less automatic. "When we were smaller, we naturally calibrated all the time. You noticed more quickly what was happening. People spoke with each other more often. That changed as we grew."
The vision itself hadn't changed. The challenge was maintaining the connection between that vision and hundreds of everyday decisions made throughout the organization. At the same time, Ulrika noticed something else. She saw situations where the organization's vision wasn't always reflected consistently in daily practice. Her managers, on the other hand, could point to many examples where things were going exactly as intended. These observations led to a discussion that many growing organizations face.
How do you know whether an organization's vision is actually being lived? And perhaps even more importantly, how do you shape it without relying on assumptions, opinions, or isolated incidents?
Neither perspective told the whole story. Looking back, she offers a more nuanced perspective on the discussion. "It wasn't as good as they thought it was, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it was."
Another realization soon followed. Somewhere along the way, safeguarding the organization's vision had become largely her responsibility. "It became more my subject, even though it shouldn't have been my subject alone."
If keeping the vision alive depended on one person, perhaps the real question was no longer how to communicate it more effectively. Perhaps the question was how to make it more visible in everyday behavior.
"It became more my subject, even though it shouldn't have been my subject alone."
Ulrika Leons, Managing Director Skils
By the time Skils began reflecting on how its vision was being translated into daily practice, one thing was already clear. The organization didn't lack knowledge. Over the years, Skils had invested extensively in developing its people, reinforcing the same message: this is how we work, and this is what we stand for.
Yet something still didn't add up. If everyone understood the vision, why wasn't it reflected with the same consistency across the organization? That question challenged an assumption many organizations make: that understanding naturally leads to consistent behavior.
For Ulrika, it marked a change in perspective. "For a long time, we relied on our employees' intrinsic motivation to immerse themselves in our vision. I think we also assumed that everyone felt the same need to make that vision their own."
As the organization grew, she realized that assumption wasn't always realistic. As in any organization, people bring different interests, motivations, and priorities to their work. Meanwhile, client care, operational demands, and the pace of everyday business continue regardless. Even when people share the same intentions, they don't necessarily behave in the same way.
From that point on, she was asking a different question. Rather than asking whether people believed in the organization's vision, she wanted to understand whether the behaviors needed to support that vision were actually taking place. "I no longer wanted to discuss whether someone meant well or not. I wanted to understand which behaviors were visible and what effect those behaviors had on the results we wanted to achieve."
The turning point came when a fellow psychologist introduced her to Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). What immediately appealed to her wasn't that OBM presented a completely new way of thinking. Quite the opposite. It translated concepts she already knew from psychology into the context of organizations. "As psychologists, we work with learning principles and behavior change every day, but primarily at the individual level. What I found so powerful about OBM was seeing those same principles applied to organizational results."
It immediately resonated with her. The science wasn't new; the application was.
The next challenge, however, was finding the right partner who could help translate those principles into the realities of a growing organization. Skils found that partner in OBM Academy, where they were matched with David Polinder, an experienced OBM specialist who has spent many years helping organizations apply behavioral science to leadership, organizational culture, and performance improvement.
Rather than offering a standard program, the collaboration began with the organization's own challenges. Conversations with senior leadership, gathering real-world cases, and the existing knowledge within the Skils leadership team formed the foundation for a program tailored to the company's context. Training was only one part of that process. Reflection sessions, practical assignments, and regular evaluation helped managers apply the concepts to situations in their own teams.
"We received a great deal of customization. The program was adapted to our situation, our challenges, and the knowledge we already had. That made it highly relevant to where we were standing as an organization." The experience also reinforced something Ulrika considers essential. A methodology only creates value when its principles remain intact while its application reflects the realities of the organization using it. That was exactly what she experienced throughout the program. "David kept us focused on the core principles of OBM while also understanding how our organization worked."
For Ulrika, the value lay in combining scientific rigor and practical flexibility. On the one hand, there was the discipline to stay true to the scientific foundations underpinning Organizational Behavior Management. On the other, there was the flexibility to adapt those concepts to the dynamics, challenges, and day-to-day context of a growing business.
That gave her confidence that this could deliver far more than a traditional leadership program. It offered a fundamentally different way of understanding leadership, behavior, and performance.
It also raised another question. If behavior is the key to better business results, what behaviors do you actually want to see? And how can managers create the conditions in which those behaviors become part of everyday practice?
Managers were used to focusing on individual employees, their development, motivation, and performance. Much less attention was paid to which team behaviors actually contributed to the organization's goals.
"I wanted them to look at the organization through the same behavioral lens they use when working with clients." That proved easier said than done. Like many companies embarking on behavior change, Skils soon encountered a fundamental question: How do you make behavior measurable?
Like many companies, Skils initially looked for objective indicators. Could the desired behaviors be measured? Were there observable activities that would demonstrate whether the organization's vision was being applied consistently? The idea seemed straightforward. The reality proved more complicated.
Managers explored practical questions. How often did psychologists contact a client's manager? Which activities could be tracked consistently across teams? The more those conversations progressed, the more one dilemma kept resurfacing.
Were they trying to measure what really mattered? Ulrika remembers reaching a point where the distinction became impossible to ignore. "At one point we came up with ideas that were measurable, but I realized they actually didn't tell us anything." She offers a simple example.
“A psychologist may contact a client's manager because the process requires it. The phone call can be counted, documented, and reported. But if that conversation contributes little to the client's recovery or successful return to work, does the number itself really say anything about whether the organization's vision is being put into practice?”
The opposite can also be true. A psychologist may fully embrace the Skils philosophy without ever needing to contact a client's manager.
That realization changed the discussion. Instead of asking which activities could be measured most easily, Skils began asking which observations best reflected the quality of professional behavior.
Ulrika describes that shift as liberating. “That was a real breakthrough for me. I realized that a manager's professional judgment can also be a form of measurement." It didn't mean abandoning objective data. It meant recognizing that not everything important can be reduced to a process metric. Sometimes the most meaningful measurement comes from systematically evaluating whether behavior reflects the professional standards and organizational vision it is intended to support.
The insight also helped change the way managers looked at leadership. Previously, many conversations focused primarily on coaching, supporting, and helping employees overcome challenges. Those responsibilities remained just as important.
In Ulrika’s view, OBM also adds an essential dimension to leadership: deliberately shaping the behaviors that drive organizational performance. "Intentionally managing behavior and results has become part of how they lead," she points out.
At first, the difference may seem small. In practice, it fundamentally changed the nature of leadership conversations. Discussions became less centered on motivation, personality, or assumptions about intent. Instead, they focused on something everyone could observe. Behavior.
"You don't focus on the person. You focus on the effectiveness of the behavior. That made our conversations less personal, less emotionally charged, and, paradoxically, more constructive."
People were no longer debating who was right. They were working together to understand which behaviors helped the organization achieve its purpose. For an organization relying on professionals, that distinction mattered a lot. It gave managers greater clarity, more confidence to lead, and a stronger sense of legitimacy to make performance an explicit part of their leadership.
Leadership programs are rarely judged by what happens during training sessions. Their real value becomes visible afterward. For Ulrika, success was never about whether managers understood the principles of OBM by the end of the program. They did. The real test was whether those principles would become part of everyday leadership once the workshops had ended and attention shifted back to the demands of daily work.
As part of the program, every manager and team leader developed a personal action plan. Each plan focused on translating the organization's vision into concrete behaviors within their own teams. Like most learning journeys, people approached that assignment differently.
Some immediately began experimenting with the ideas. Others first wanted to understand how they would apply them in practice. Managers challenged one another, refined their thinking, and debated what the desired behaviors should actually look like.
None of that surprised Ulrika. What happened next did. When she began reviewing the progress of the action plans, she discovered that many of the discussions had already moved beyond the formal program. Managers had developed their plans. They were exchanging ideas. They were discussing challenges together. And they were doing so without waiting for her to initiate them. "They were already working on it without me having to follow up."
At first glance, it may seem like a detail. To Ulrika, it represented something much bigger. For someone who had carried the organization's vision for years, however, that moment meant far more than it seemed. It signaled a shift in ownership. The vision was no longer dependent on a single individual, and people were no longer acting because they were expected to, but because they had come to believe in its importance themselves.
This was perhaps the clearest indication that something fundamental had changed. That realization stayed with her.
"It no longer feels like my subject. It feels as though the management team has adopted it."
It is a moment she returns to several times. Not because it marked the end of the program, but because it answered the question that had set everything in motion. Could the organization's vision continue to thrive without depending on her daily leadership?
For the first time, she felt confident that the answer was yes.
Organizational culture is often described as something intangible, something that is difficult to define, even harder to influence, and nearly impossible to measure. But in reality, culture becomes visible in everyday behavior, in the words people choose, the questions they ask, and the actions they reinforce.
One of the most noticeable changes during the OBM journey wasn't a new process or a new leadership model. It was the emergence of a shared language. Within the management team, conversations gradually became more specific, more objective, and easier to navigate because everyone was using the same behavioral framework.
One example still makes Ulrika smile. Today, managers regularly refer to what they simply call "the A-side." To anyone outside the organization, the expression means very little. Inside the Skils leadership team, everyone immediately understands it.
The term comes from the ABC model, where the A stands for Antecedents—the things that happen before behavior. Goals, policies, instructions, communication, reminders. The conditions intended to encourage behavior. Important? Absolutely. Sufficient? Not necessarily.
As Ulrika explains: "We even joke about it now. If someone says, 'That's just the A-side,' everyone immediately knows what they mean." The phrase has become part of the team's everyday language. Communicating expectations is not the same as influencing behavior. A policy can be clear. A presentation can be excellent. People can fully understand what is expected. But none of that guarantees that the desired behavior will actually occur.
What began as one of the key concepts within the OBM methodology gradually became part of everyday conversations. That may sound like a small change. It wasn't.
Once people begin speaking the same language, behavior becomes easier to discuss. A common language creates a shared frame of reference. That, in turn, makes it easier to challenge one another without conversations becoming personal. The organization hadn't simply adopted new terminology. It had developed a new way of talking about behavior.
For Ulrika, one of the most significant changes has been the way managers see their own role. Traditionally, leaders tend to emphasize one of two perspectives. On one side is the human aspect: coaching, supporting, and helping people develop. On the other is the organizational side: processes, structures, KPIs, and performance metrics. She believes that neither perspective is sufficient on its own.
"If you focus only on the human side or only on the structural side, you miss the essence of how organizations actually perform."
In Ulrika's view, this is one of the areas where the OBM program made a meaningful difference. Leaders now feel empowered to deliberately shape the behaviors that drive organizational performance. Not because they have become more directive or exert greater control, but because they better understand which behaviors produce the desired outcomes and which ones unintentionally reinforce something else.
That last insight may be the most difficult of all. Most leaders know which behaviors they want to encourage. What often remains invisible is what they unintentionally reward or reinforce. To her, this is another example of how OBM changed the way leaders think about behavior.
As a result, conversations within the management team became less focused on people and intentions, and more on behavior, its effects, and the results the organization wanted to achieve. As Ulrika puts it: "We've become much more aware of what we're actually reinforcing. We’ve learned to separate the evaluation of results from the evaluation of people."
It may seem like a subtle distinction. But one that significantly changed the way managers approached leadership. Discussions became less about personal beliefs and individual opinions. Instead, they increasingly centered on a shared question: What does the organization need to achieve its goals?
Looking back on the OBM journey, Ulrika sees a lesson that extends far beyond Skils. Many growing organizations invest heavily in strategy, systems, and processes. Others focus on leadership development and culture. Yet, in the end, they all converge on the same point: behavior.
"Ultimately, an organization's results are the sum of its people's behavior."
It sounds almost self-evident. Yet in many organizations, it remains surprisingly implicit. Leaders talk about ownership, collaboration, and customer focus, but far less about the specific actions those ambitions require. That is where the gap between strategy and execution often begins. Not because people lack commitment, but because they do not always know what is expected of them, or because leaders have not yet developed the capability to shape the behaviors that matter most.
As a result, leaders need to ask a different question. Instead of asking, do we have the right strategy? They should ask, which behaviors need to be visible every day to make that strategy a reality? The OBM approach offers a compelling answer. Not as a replacement for strategy or culture, but as the bridge between the two.
Toward the end of the conversation, she returns to what she believes lies at the heart of OBM. It is not the models or the methodology; however rigorous they may be. It is the logic behind them: the logic of human behavior.
"There is a reason why most evidence-based treatment protocols are built on learning principles. They reflect the fundamental principles of human behavior. And the same principles apply to organizations."
Perhaps that also answers the question that first emerged years earlier: How do you keep a vision alive as an organization grows? Not by repeating it. Not by adding another document, training program, or presentation. But by defining the behaviors that bring it to life and by helping leaders intentionally reinforce them every day.
Because, ultimately, a vision becomes reality only when it is reflected in people's everyday behavior.
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