How to Rate Organizational Culture
Lots of change programs within organizations and teams just fail. Many people say: ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’. And you could concur on modifying your strategy or your customer service, but if this change does not line up with the current organizational culture, you will not be successful…
Organizational culture characterizes what you appreciate, the way you grasp things, your assumptions and convictions about work and so on and hence: your behavior. When it comes down to results, organizational culture makes the difference because it affects behavior so vigorously. Actually putting change into practise and boosting performance, starts in the minds of managers and people on the floor. It’s all about the culture they share. Let it operate for you instead of hinder change.
What could make that happen? Unless you have some reference you don’t know where you stand. The OCAI which stands for Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument, has proven to be a clear beginning for about any change process. This tool is currently used by more than 10,000 organizations worldwide and is validated and built on by professors Kim Cameron & Robert Quinn.
Founded on the Competing Values Framework, the OCAI identifies 4 culture types with competing values. These are:
- Clan Culture, based on Cooperating
- Adhocracy Culture, based on Creating
- Market Culture, based on Competing
- Hierarchy Culture, based on Controlling
Participants assess 6 crucial characteristics of their organization’s culture when finishing the online survey. The result is a outline of the current culture, that is a mix of the 4 archetypes above.
Frequently one of the culture types is dominant. For instance, some people might have a prevailing Adhocracy Culture, focusing on new products and services, being innovative and taking risks.
After the change has occurred, people measure their preferred culture for the future. It is very interesting and useful to compare these two profiles. In case of a big difference between the current and preferred state, people might be prepared for tangible change or are not feeling satisfied about their current working climate.
For instance, certain colleagues have a warm working climate, but they know they should focus more on results. So they agree to enhance pieces of Market Culture and begin using factors of competition to get things done.
The primary step to booming, maintainable change is rating organizational culture. It shows you where your team or organization is right now and where they want to go. It is very instructive to learn where executives and employees differ and tell distinctive subgroups. That gives methods on what to do next: how could executives make the change program better, how could you overcome resistance, what exactly do employees expect, etcetera.
To go from the simple but well-defined four-typology to tailor made solutions for your organization you can work out your results in a workshop. Working with every members, you’ll be able to work out differences and genuinely get people to not only say YES to the change program, but act like YES and truly implement the new behavior. And that is where change really occurs!