Ward Hadaway: turning values into everyday behaviour
Case study · Values and behaviours framework · Legal and professional services
“Aidan, the Malleable Mind team and our people helped us transform our core values into a practical behavioural framework. The framework is now embedded in how we recruit, develop and promote our people and it has played an important role in further strengthening the firm’s culture and integrating new talent into the business as we’ve grown.
We’ve worked with Aidan and the Malleable Mind team for several years, supporting everything from business planning in some departments to the development of firm-wide change. Aidan’s grounding in psychology helped turn the framework into something meaningful, practical and enduring.”
Steven Petrie, Managing Partner, Ward Hadaway
At a glance
- 75% of staff took part, far above the 20 to 30% most staff surveys achieve
- 12 values few people could recall became a tiered behaviours framework built from staff input
- Revenue up more than 11% in 2024/25, the firm’s fifth straight year of income growth, and 14% in 2025/26
- Now used in how the firm recruits, develops and promotes its people
The background
For the last five years we have worked in close partnership with Ward Hadaway across a variety of business areas, from department-specific development and management board support to whole-organisation work underpinning ambitious strategic growth plans.
A major part of this work has recently focused on creating and embedding a values and behaviour framework. Its purpose was to make Ward Hadaway a brilliant place to work: somewhere people feel connected, belong and thrive. It was also designed to be the scaffold that underpins ambitious growth and continued success, achieved in the right way, the Ward Hadaway way.
As leadership of the firm passed from the outgoing managing partner to the current managing partner, Steven Petrie, we worked hand in hand with the Director of People, Anna Brown. Together we explored the firm’s forward-looking strategic goals and designed an approach to its people processes that would support continued and evolving success.
To do this, we proposed a project to design, develop and embed a firm-wide values and behaviours model. The model would shape every people process from then on, and help Ward Hadaway identify, select, recruit and promote people and behaviours that embody the Ward Hadaway way.
Ward Hadaway already had 12 values, listed on its intranet landing page. The telling evidence we surfaced was that even at the most senior levels, people would be doing well to recall three or four of them. As for interpreting and applying the values, there was no consensus on which behaviours, in context, they actually meant.
The task
The task was to design and deliver a behaviours framework that would align with and support the growth strategy being formed and implemented by the incoming managing partner, Steven Petrie.
To do this, we needed to make the values mean something, and for that meaning to be explicitly set out and agreed. The framework also had to be meaningful day to day, support the growth strategy, and describe a version of the organisation that people wanted to, and could, subscribe to.
This could have been done simply, as many organisations do, by imposing the output of a small working group. Psychologically, that would have been counter-productive.
To activate it in a meaningful way, the first requirement was for the management board to explore and agree the concept, approach and rationale. Next, it needed the whole firm to engage with and understand the approach and its rationale: from the front desk in the experience team, right through the service channels and departments, the partner groups, and each leadership tier.
The output had to be succinct, yet relevant and powerful enough for operational adoption and real-life application, so that it could be built into each people process as the project became established and embedded.
The language had to be meaningful, using common, non-technical words so that legally trained and non-legal staff alike could connect with the concepts. The standards needed to stretch people to perform without being so demanding that staff saw them as impossible to achieve.
The approach
Two critical components brought the project to life. First, we needed to secure leadership, executive and management board buy-in, to support the project and its aims and to sanction the time it would take. Second, we needed to listen to the voice of the organisation. Inclusion had to be both felt and seen in the project and its outputs. This was central to helping staff take ownership of the outputs and feel connected to the framework.
The first phase was to work closely with the management board to explore and shape the project and how we would roll it out. We spent two full days with the board in consultation: listening, workshopping ideas, building consensus for the concept, relating it to the growth strategy and the psychology of high performance, and fielding challenge about the worth of the project.
This resulted in agreement, excitement, and a commitment of energy, time and resources to the project. Given that billable time has historically been the central metric in law, this was no small result, as our approach required a significant time commitment from staff.
We then took the project to the wider firm. Through multi-site half-day workshops, facilitated online Teams sessions and follow-up surveys, we collected hundreds of responses from every tier of the organisation. This was their voice: their input into what the best version of Ward Hadaway would look like.
We analysed the data using thematic content analysis to identify and codify the values, competencies and behaviours that would both support the organisation’s future and reflect the voice and views of its people. We then mapped this output against the firm’s structure, roles and responsibilities to create a tiered framework, in which those in more senior roles are stretched further in their behavioural expectations.
The science
Several evidence-based psychological theories underpin this project.
Self-determination theory. Researched since 1985, this theory has a strong evidence base in high-performance psychology. Its central idea is that people need autonomy, relatedness and competence. By making space to listen, we helped staff feel included from the ground up, see their voice heard and represented, and feel connected to the ideas and outcomes, which reflect the language staff themselves produced. It also let staff see in the behaviours how their own actions (autonomy) could support their own and others’ high performance (competence), and how an agreed approach built a feeling of unity (relatedness).
Social identity theory. This looks at how groups function, and how people either connect with a group and become contributors to, custodians of and actors in its “rules of belonging”, or come to see themselves as isolated and disconnected. It was central to creating a vision of the Ward Hadaway way: what it means to be part of this group, and what we ask of ourselves and each other. We used it to balance what the individual, the team and the organisation as an entity in its own right each want and need. The organisation undertakes to live up to its people’s expectations, and it also sets out its expectations of them.
Social learning theory. We learn from what is around us and from seeing what others treat as acceptable behaviour. This supports self, team and organisational regulation of behaviour against the agreed behaviours in the framework.
Trust and influence psychology (the work of Cialdini and others). How do we build trust and confidence in a new approach and secure buy-in, particularly from those who may be more sceptical? Drawing on this area of psychology, we encouraged a willingness to listen and engage, and strengthened staff energy and commitment by following through on what we promised at the outset: this will come from you, and you will see your voice and ideas reflected in the content.
Coaching psychology. We used an advanced understanding of human thinking and conversational dynamics to help staff develop the skills to change and regulate their own behaviour, drawing on the psychology of dual-process thinking.
Relational frame theory. We drew on our understanding of how language shapes our thoughts, beliefs and expectations of the world around us. This helped us create frames of reference that were meaningful and resonated with the needs of an ambitious law firm on a growth journey.
We also recognise the significance, in the legal sector, of the acronym formed by the values Straightforward, Respectful and Ambitious (SRA). Again, psychology sits behind this.
The project
The first phase of the project collected data from across the firm. Every member of staff was invited to take part, and 75% responded and contributed. That’s far above the 20 to 30% response rate most staff surveys achieve, and it supported our undertaking that the voice of the organisation would be visible in the output.
We worked hand in hand with the people function to craft and finalise the output, so that the language around departments, plans and strategy reflected the terms in everyday use across the firm. We worked closely with the marketing department on the look of the final product, guided by best practice and by the psychology of image selection, structure and colour, so that it looked and felt like it belonged.
We continue to work with the people function on engagement and training, so that the framework becomes central to day-to-day life and growth and is woven into every people process.
The results
Ward Hadaway continues to grow at pace, sustainably and positively. The 2024/25 financial year was its fifth straight year of income growth, with revenue up more than 11%, and 14% in 2025/26. The firm has also continued to expand, opening an office in Birmingham and acquiring another law firm in the North East.
We have played a central part in helping these new colleagues understand the framework and lean into it as a way of achieving success.
The people team see the framework’s value in how it spotlights positive behaviours, in how people embody it, and in staff feedback showing higher levels of the core constructs from the underlying psychological theories.
The top layer of the behaviours framework appears as the Ward Hadaway values on the firm’s website: Our values and beliefs, Ward Hadaway.
Could a similar approach work for you?
We can advise, consult, co-design and deliver an approach that helps your organisation use the psychology of high performance and the evidence base in psychology to build a future that serves your aims.