assessing organization culture2

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Assessing Organizational Culture

G. Kenneth Koves, Ph.D.

Presented to the Southeast Association of Facilitators

July 13, 2007

[email protected] 678-777-3853
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Who Am I?

Ken Koves

Manager of Organizational Development at INPO

Sr. OD Consultant at Sprint

Graduated from Georgia TechPh.D. in I/O Psychology

Andersen Consultingculture change course


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What About Today?

Assumption 1: You are occasionally requested to assessorganization culture and want to be prepared for the discussionand implementation

Assumption 2: An organizational change bias

Goal: Educated consumers

Prepare you for certain conversations

Prepare you to evaluate options

Reference: Robert LindahlThe Role of OrganizationalClimate and Culture in the School Improvement Process: AReview of the Knowledge Base

Composition: Structured dialogue with exercises


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Agenda

What is Organizational Culture?

What is Organizational Climate?

How is Culture Assessed?

Qualitative Assessment

Can Culture be Quantitatively Assessed?

Quantitative Assessment

The Assessment Process

The Relationship between Leadership and Culture


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What Is Organization Culture?

Your definition

Webster (2005):

(a) the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior thatdepends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to

succeeding generations; (b) the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial,

religious, or social group;

(c) the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices thatcharacterizes a company or corporation.

Schein A pattern of shared basic assumptions

A fairly common, simplistic definition of organizationalculture is The way we do things around here. (Lindhal)


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What Is Organization Culture?

Kilman, Saxton, and Serpa (1985b) provided an apt analogythat helps to illuminate the nature of organizational culture:

Culture is to the organization what personality is to the

individuala hidden, yet unifying theme that provides

meaning, direction, and mobilization. As such, it isemotional and intangible (Connor & Lake, 1988), individually

and socially constructed (Hall & Hord, 2001; Rousseau, 1990),

and evolves over a period of years (Wilkins & Patterson,

1985), especially as organizations find acceptable and

unacceptable solutions to internal and external problems or

threats (Schein, 1985a, 1992). (Lindhal)


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What Is Organizational Climate?

Many authors, including Schein (1992), have drawn sharp linesof demarcation between the constructs of organizational climate

and culture. Rousseau (1990) differentiated between these two

constructs on the basis of climate being the descriptive beliefs

and perceptions individuals hold of the organization, whereasculture is the shared values, beliefs, and expectations that

develop from social interactions within the organization.

(Lindhal)


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How Is Culture Assessed?

QualitativelyEthnography

QuantitativelySurveys


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Qualitative Assessment

Tell me about your culturegive evidence

Qualitative assessment techniques

Observation

Interviews Focus groups

Case studies

Etc.


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Can Culture Be

Quantitatively Assessed?

NO

Each culture is unique so a standard survey will not capture the

uniqueness.

YES

It is true that surveys will not represent the uniqueness of a culture but

they do capture broad categories of behavior that are typical (and

important to) an effective organization

If culture is like a salad


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Can Culture Be

Quantitatively Assessed?

NO

It is generally agreed that assessment of an organizations climate is a

relatively straight-forward process, especially when compared to the

methodologies needed to assess the organizations culture. As climate is

defined as individuals perceptions, quantitative survey instruments have

become the most widely accepted means of gathering and analyzing

organizational climate data. The same is not true for the assessment of

culture; in fact, various authorities in the field (e.g., Schein, 1999) assert

that it absolutely cannot be measured quantitatively through surveys or

questionnaires. (Lindhal)


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Can Culture Be Meaningful lyAssessed

Quantitatively?

YES

The boundaries between organizational climate and culture can appear

to be artificial, arbitrary, and even largely unnecessary. (Lindhal)

Thats my point


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What About Subcultures?

IMO, they exist

Measure them the same way (Breakouts)

Try not to get molecular


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Culture Survey Exercise

Review the surveys

Compare dimensions to determine similarities and differences

Create supra-dimensions and chart


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No Model Surveys

There are many firms and surveys with no particular model(e.g., ISR, Gelfond, Genesee, Sirota)

DIY

Have a model in mind Know how you will implement the survey

Review with someone who has experience writing survey items


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Evaluation Criteria

Coverage: Number of dimensions

Length: Items per dimension; Total items; Time to complete

Norms

Research: Reliability; Validity; Reference manual/users guide

Usability: Web; Paper; Voice

Explainability

Post-survey implementation

Cost


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Which Is Best?

It depends upon what do you want to know, and why you wantto know it and the conditions

Review todays surveys

Coverage: Number of dimensions Length: Items per dimension; Total items; Time to complete

Norms

Research: Reliability; Validity

Usability: Web; Paper; Voice

Explainability

Post-survey implementation

Cost


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Qualitative vs. Quantitative

Pros and Cons

As a practitioner you will usually need to use both


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Warning: A Brief Advertisement

Denison Organization Culture Survey (DOCS)


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Generic Assessment Process

Qualitative assessment

Quantitative assessment

Qualitative assessment

Conclusions/Report

Assess every couple of years

Dont use as a KPI


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Organizational Culture and Leadership

A research project at N


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Organizational Context

The Denison Organization Culture Survey(DOCS) was administered in a business unit of

3,400 associates

2,400 respondents

20 call/contact center locations


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The results across the centers varied tremendously:

Why? - Its the leadership!

Organizational Context


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Research Purpose

Determine issues and root causes associated with the DenisonOrganization Culture Survey (DOCS) results in the call/contact

centers

Basic questions would include, but not be limited to:

What issues account for the most variance in the health of the centers

as measured by the DOCS?

What is the impact of leadership on culture scores?


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Methodology

15 centers were visited approximately 6 months after the DOCSadministration

At least three focus groups of reps were conducted per center

Individual interviews were conducted with most of the centermanagement

All managers and supervisors with direct reports were asked to

complete the Denison Leadership Development Survey (DLDS)

Correlational analysis was conducted of the DOCS and DLDS

scores


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Denison Leadership Development

Survey


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Results

What factors drive the health of N call centers?

What is the qualitative relationship between leadership and call

center health?

A brief review of correlation.

What is the quantitative relationship between leadership and

culture?

What is the relationship between upper-level and lower-levelmanager styles?

What is the correlation between manager self-awareness and

center health?


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What Drives the Health of N Call

Centers?

The biggest discriminator between the health of the centers isthe amount of information transferred to the reps

Information transfer is defined as:

Amount of information assimilated or functionally accessible

Amount of information needed to perform the job well


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What Drives the Health of N Call

Centers?

The healthy centers make more effective use of the following: Online handbooks

On-site M&P support and trainers

Innovative, effective new hire training

Innovative, personal communication to the reps regarding changes

Quality Assurance evaluators A help desk for the reps

Knowledgeable management, especially at the supervisor level, that know how todo the job of the people they supervise

Job shadowing with relevant functions

People skills of the management team

Rewarding, both verbally and non-verbally, of good performance

Perceived teamwork between reps and management

More flexibility around rules so reps dont feel like children

Greater predictability and consistency in the environment


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What is the Qualitative Relationship Between

Leadership and Call Center Health?

Centers with higher scores appeared to have leadership that wasmore in tune with the needs of the reps and did somethingabout

those needs


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Statistical Correlation

The correlation coefficient is a measure of the strength of thelinear (straight-line) relationship between two variables. (Mendenhall,McClave and Ramey)

Correlation coefficients range between -1 and 1.

Correlation = .81

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Correlation = .01

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0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00

Correlations greater than + or - .4 are most meaningful.


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What is the Quantitative Relationship Between

Leadership and Culture?

First, we correlated sub-dimension scores of the DOCS and DLDS

with unconvincing results.

Dimension DOCSScore

DLDSReports

Self Others Peers Directs Bosses

Core Values 44 69 55 38 67 61Cust. Focus 44 75 80 66 81 74

Correlation w/ DOCS .22 .08 -.05 .14 .11


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What is the Quantitative Relationship Between

Leadership and Culture?

Next, we correlated the DOCS with the DLDS by mean score:

What is the relationship? There appears to be a .4 or greater correlation between leadership

style and culture

The relationship is more clearly seen when looking at aggregatelevels of behavior

Center Avg.DOCS

DLDSReports

Score Self Others Peers Directs Bosses

Center 1 56 77 75 60 77 75

Center 2 17 31 45 47 42 43

Center 9 9 27 59 77 51 32

Correlation w/ DOCS .71 .42 -.01 .55 .60


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What is the Relationship Between Upper-Level

and Lower-Level Leadership Styles?

Difference scores of center leadership relative to executive leadership:

Overall, upper-level and center leadership styles are very similar.

Center leadership is rated slightly lower than upper-level leadershipby bosses and directs, however the difference is very small

There is much more variation within groups than between groups

Self Others Peers Directs Bosses

Cust. Focus 0 -18 -9 -24 -12

Org. Learning 14 -6 1 -16 1

Goals & Obj. -7 -12 -10 -9 -7

Shared Vision 7 -6 -4 -4 -13

Mean 9 -7 0 -11 -8


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What is the Relationship Between Upper-Level

and Lower-Level Management Styles?


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What is the Relationship Between Manager

Self-Awareness and Center Health?

We correlated the DOCS with the difference between the Self scoreand the Combined Other score:

The smaller the difference between the center management self ratingand the ratings of others, the higher the DOCS score.

CenterDOCSScore

Absolute Value ofDifference Score

Between Self Ratingand Combined Other

Center 1 562Center 2 17 13.6

Center 8 47 1. 7Center 9 9 31.8

Correlation -.81

Are managers who are more self-aware more understanding of the

needs of the reps? (c.f., Briscoe & Hall, 1999; Metacompetencies Identity and Adaptability.)


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Conclusions

What factors drive the health of these centers? The quality of the support tools and the level of knowledge of the reps

What is the qualitative relationship between leadership and call center health?

Healthier centers have leadership that is more aware of the needs of the reps and implementchanges to address those needs

What is the quantitative relationship between leadership and culture?

There appears to be at least a .4 or greater correlation between leadership and culture

What is the relationship between upper-level and lower-level managerial styles?

In this organization, there was very little difference in managerial styles

What is the correlation between manager self-awareness and center health?

Healthier centers appear to be led by management teams that are more aware of their ownstrengths and weaknesses


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What Impact do Leaders Really have on

Shaping Culture?

A strong impact that can be measured!

With correlations of approximately .4 and greater the relationship is very

meaningful

However, leadership is not the only variable to impact culture

Other variables such as information transfer, processes, systems and

cross-functional coordination impact culture and organizational health

In a stable organization would the correlation be larger the

higher in the organization you look?


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One Last Thought on Leadership and

Culture Change

Louis V. Gerstner argues that strategy and corporate

culture are intimately linked. "You can't talk a culture

into changing," he said. "You can't just exhort people to

be different. You've got to point to fundamentalstrategic changes you're going to implement in a

company and then drive the execution of that strategy.

And it is in the execution of the strategy that the culture

begins to change."

New York Times, March 10, 2002

assessing organization culture2

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