Assessing Organizational Culture

G. Kenneth Koves, Ph.D. Presented to the Southeast Association of Facilitators July 13, 2007 kckoves@yahoo.com 678-777-3853

Who Am I?
Ken Koves

Manager of Organizational Development at INPO

Sr. OD Consultant at Sprint Graduated from Georgia Tech Ph.D. in I/O Psychology Andersen Consulting culture change course

What About Today?

Assumption 1: You are occasionally requested to assess

organization culture and want to be prepared for the discussion and implementation
Assumption 2: An organizational change bias Goal: Educated consumers

Prepare you for certain conversations Prepare you to evaluate options

Reference: Robert Lindahl The Role of Organizational

Climate and Culture in the School Improvement Process: A Review 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 that depends 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 that characterizes a company or corporation.

Schein A pattern of shared basic assumptions A fairly common, simplistic definition of organizational

culture 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 analogy

that helps to illuminate the nature of organizational culture: Culture is to the organization what personality is to the individual a hidden, yet unifying theme that provides meaning, direction, and mobilization. As such, it is emotional 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)

What Is Organizational Climate?

Many authors, including Schein (1992), have drawn sharp lines

of 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, whereas culture is the shared values, beliefs, and expectations that develop from social interactions within the organization. (Lindhal)

How Is Culture Assessed?

Qualitatively Ethnography

Quantitatively Surveys

Qualitative Assessment
Tell me about your culture give evidence

Qualitative assessment techniques

Observation Interviews Focus groups Case studies Etc.

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 Meaningfully Assessed 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 want

to 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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Organizational Context

The results across the centers varied tremendously:

Why? - Its the leadership!

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Research Purpose
Determine issues and root causes associated with the Denison

Organization 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 DOCS

administration
At least three focus groups of reps were conducted per center Individual interviews were conducted with most of the center

management
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-level

manager 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 is

the 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 to do 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 was

more in tune with the needs of the reps and did something about those needs

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Statistical Correlation

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

Correlation coefficients range between -1 and 1.

Correlation = .81
100.00 90.00 80.00 70.00 60.00 50.00 40.00 0 10 20 30 40
60.00 50.00 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 0.00 0.00

Correlation = .01

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
Dimension DOCS Score Self Core Values Cust. Focus 44 44 69 75 .22 DLDS Reports Others Peers 55 38 80 66 .08 -.05

Directs Bosses 67 61 81 74 .14 .11

Correlation w/ DOCS

with unconvincing results.

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What is the Quantitative Relationship Between Leadership and Culture? Next, we correlated the DOCS with the DLDS by mean score:
Center Avg. DOCS Score 56 17 9 DLDS Reports Peers 60 47 77 -.01

Self 77 31 27 .71

Center 1 Center 2 Center 9

Others 75 45 59 .42

Directs 77 42 51 .55

Bosses 75 43 32 .60

Correlation w/ DOCS

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 aggregate levels of behavior
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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:
Self Cust. Focus Org. Learning Goals & Obj. Shared Vision Mean 0 14 -7 7 9 Others -18 -6 -12 -6 -7 Peers -9 1 -10 -4 0 Directs -24 -16 -9 -4 -11 Bosses -12 1 -7 -13 -8

Overall, upper-level and center leadership styles are very similar. Center leadership is rated slightly lower than upper-level leadership by bosses and directs, however the difference is very small There is much more variation within groups than between groups

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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 score and the Combined Other score:
Absolute Value of Difference Score Between Self Rating and Combined Other 2 13.6 1. 7 31.8 -.81

Center Center 1 Center 2 Center 8 Center 9 Correlation

DOCS Score 56 17 47 9

The smaller the difference between the center management self rating and the ratings of others, the higher the DOCS score. 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 implement changes 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 own strengths 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 fundamental strategic 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

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