Transforming a Utility from the Inside Out
34% culture shift. 15% leakage reduction. 70% community support.
When Hunter Water Corporation needed to fundamentally transform its performance and customer relationships, it discovered that technical solutions alone weren't enough. The real shift required building human capability: across the organisation, its supply chain, and eventually, the community it served.
The result: a compliance-focused utility that had "forgotten how to learn" became an adaptive, curious organisation that delivered measurable behaviour change at every level - and sustained it.
The Challenge
In 2016, Hunter Water Corporation - the public water utility serving the Lower Hunter region of New South Wales, Australia - faced a strategic inflection point.
Performance had plateaued. Customer satisfaction was stagnant. The organisation had become compliance-focused, risk-averse, and culturally resistant to change. Leadership recognised that achieving their ambitions for operational performance and customer experience would require more than process improvement or restructuring.
They needed to transform how people thought, learned, and worked. Starting with themselves.
The Approach
WILD worked with Hunter Water over several years to build human capability systematically - applying the full stack of behaviour change (Story, Context, Boost, Inhabit) at every level:
1. Leadership and Organisation:
The transformation began with naming the challenge: a compliance-focused utility that had forgotten how to learn (Story). WILD helped leadership co-design new conditions - structures, rhythms, decision-rights - that made learning behaviours easier than the old compliance habits (Context). Through Learning Power diagnostics and structured journeys, leaders built the adaptive mindset and thinking skills to lean into complexity (Boost). Over time, leaders found their own story within the bigger story - transformation became something they owned, not something done to them (Inhabit).
2. Supply Chain and Partners:
The same cycle extended beyond Hunter Water's own workforce. Partners and contractors were invited into a shared narrative (Story), worked within redesigned contractual and relational conditions (Context), developed shared capability and language (Boost), and came to see themselves as co-owners of outcomes (Inhabit).
3. Customer and Community:
With internal capability established, Hunter Water could engage its community differently. The "Love Water" campaign wasn't a marketing exercise; it was an invitation into a story of shared stewardship (Story). Community programmes reshaped how households related to water use (Context). Educational outreach built capability in schools and neighbourhoods (Boost). And residents came to see themselves as partners in water security, not just bill-payers (Inhabit).
This inside-out sequence proved essential: you cannot ask customers to change behaviour if your own organisation hasn't done the work first.
The Results
Organisational Transformation:
34% measurable culture shift - from compliance to learning orientation, measured through WILD's validated diagnostic tools
Leadership capability embedded across the organisation, not dependent on external consultants
Increased adaptive capacity sustained over multiple years
Operational Performance:
15% leakage reduction in three years - operational gains driven by workforce capability, not just technical fixes
Enhanced collaboration across supply chain partners
Resilience through severe drought - extended the window for decisions on source augmentation, enabling innovation with new technologies
Customer and Community Outcomes:
70% community support for the Lower Hunter Water Security Plan - transformed from years of adversarial opposition after the Tillegra Dam controversy
97% support for conservation and leak repair measures
"Love Water" campaign achieved genuine behaviour change at household level
Customer experience scores improved significantly
The Proof Point:
Sydney Water, observing Hunter Water's success, attempted to replicate the "Love Water" campaign - but without the internal transformation work. The campaign had limited impact. The insight: you can't skip the inside-out sequence. Community behaviour change requires organisational behaviour change first.
Testimonial
"In 2016 we appointed Jim Bentley to lead Hunter Water Corporation with a mandate to transform our performance and customer experience. One of the most significant contributions to the measurable behaviour change and operational performance improvement we achieved – with staff, partners and customers – was Professor Crick's thought leadership based on the science of Learning Power.
A compliance focused organisation which had forgotten how to learn became curious about what we could achieve and optimistic about the future we could build with our community."
— Terry Lawler AO, former Chairman, Hunter Water Corporation
What This Demonstrates
Hunter Water proves that WILD's methodology works at infrastructure scale, not just individual coaching or team development, but whole-system transformation across an organisation, its partners, and its community.