Neither individuals nor groups can make intelligent decisions without a foundation of facts. There are many variables of culture that affect revenue, costs, profits, employee loyalty, customer satisfaction, rate of return, and shareholders’ value. The idea is to collect data within your organization (team, group, division, function, enterprise) on these cultural variables to form a baseline, a starting point, for initiating improvement.

The basic approach for any management consulting engagement is collect the data, analyze the data, find the most significant performance gaps, determine the root causes, quantify the benefits and costs of closing each gap, prioritize the solutions, authorize, plan, execute the solutions, monitor and verify the ROI. The 10 step process to an organic business culture takes a similar approach, but spends less energy on the most formal steps: proving cause and effect and building a rigorous business case. This is because the group itself is empowered to prioritize and expend its own resources to improve perceived gaps. In building organic organizational cultures the emphasis is on fact-based decisions, consensus, commitment, and action.

This step, in the 10 step process, is to plan the data collection. Specifically, what data is to be collected? By whom? From whom? When? And how will the results be presented?

If you have an outside coach or consultant to help you

the coach may gather data from one-on-one interviews with experts, leaders, and if appropriate, with suppliers and customers. In addition, a coach/consultant might spend 4 to 8 hours in a DILO, Day-In-the-Life-Of study. This takes one of two forms: observation or simulation.

When observing, the coach/consultant watches and listens as work is done. The coach/consultant will sit with workers in important functions (operations, customer service, sales, etc.) and record the categories of work performed, the time it takes to complete them, the problems encountered, and the interactions among team members, other functions, customers and suppliers. When simulating, the coach/consultant becomes a complaint, a service request, a prospect, or an order and experiences what it is like to move through the processes as that object.

Whether you have the benefit of a coach/consultant or you’re doing this yourself, a survey is one of the best and least expensive methods of gathering data. What questions should you ask? Who participates? Who collects and presents the results?

About two and a half years ago, I reviewed the literature and found 17 cultural variables that are statistically significant in affecting organizational performance. Before identifying the variable, here is the logic of how culture creates long-term sustainable competitive advantage.

How culture create financial value

Organizations create value in three areas: Customer Loyalty, Operational Efficiency, and Innovation. Engaging companies have engaged employees, which attract and retain customers. In addition, engaged employees are more creative: finding ways to improve internal processes and invent solutions for customers. Naturally, additional value results in higher financial return. Higher returns, generated from culture, which is primarily pervasive and enduring, creates long-term sustainable competitive advantage. This is reflected in higher shareholder value.

Now, the 17 variables.

• Direction (of the organization)

•   – Purpose, Mission, Vision
•   – Strategy
•   – Goals

• Character (individually and collectively)

•   – Responsibility
•   – Integrity
•   – Trust
•   – Openness and Curious
•   – Results Oriented

• Task Systems

•   – Customer Engagement
•   – Processes
•   – Technology
•   – Adaptability

• People Systems

•   – Capabilities
•   – Community
•   – Rewards/Reinforcement
•   – Inclusion
•   – Collaboration

As you review the list, it’s easy to see how increasing capabilities in each of the 17 variables affects the three categories of value. (I will discuss the variables in more detail in the future.)

Who should participate in the survey?

A good approach is to survey everyone inside the organization on the 17 variables. A second survey, with fewer and appropriate variables, can go to suppliers and customers. Many firms start with the broad survey inside, and later do the supplier and customer survey, to keep the process simple and to conserve resources.

Who should collect and present the data?

It’s best to have a third party such as Engaging Change ^TM do this, so people answer honestly, anonymously. Once you have a great organizational culture, where the trust scores are very high, then it’s possible to collect the data internally, without losing validity.

For many years, surveys were paper-based, distributed to employees through internal mail systems, returned by mail, results were manually entered into spreadsheets, cross footed to ensure accuracy and so on. With the web, the speed, convenience, accuracy, and simplicity of conducting surveys is a significant breakthrough for organizations and leaders who want to create fact-based, engaging change ^TM.

If you have any questions, please add a comment or send an email, if you prefer.

Keywords: culture assessment, cultural assessment, organization culture, business culture, change leadership, engaging change

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Michael Cushman, The Engaging Guru, wants you to master enrolling others in your truth, get the goodies of life, and change the world.  www.engagingchange.com