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Assessing Organizational Culture
G. Kenneth Koves, Ph.D.
Presented to the Southeast Association of Facilitators
July 13, 2007
kckoves@yahoo.com 678-777-3853
mailto:kckoves@yahoo.commailto:kckoves@yahoo.com7/30/2019 Assessing Organization Culture2
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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
40.00
50.00
60.00
70.00
80.00
90.00
100.00
0 10 20 30 40
Correlation = .01
0.00
10.00
20.00
30.00
40.00
50.00
60.00
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
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