CULTURE CREATION CANVAS ~

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by

HTTP://CULTURESUMMIT.CO

HTTP://MTCA.CO

CULTURE CREATION CANVAS ~

produced for

METRICS

GOALS

SEE THE NEED

TAKE ACTION

ALERTS

ACTIONS

socialfunctionalemotional

positive

negative

HUMILITY

POSITIVITY

EMPATHY

FREEDOM

FORESIGHT

DECISVELY

RESILIENT

FOCUSED

ENTHUSIASM

ADAPTABLE

ETHICAL

DEPENDABLE

CLARITY

W/O FEAR

FREQUENCY

ASSERTIVE

SUPPORTIVE

RECEPTIVE

COMPANY

+/-

WHY?

what is good culture?

what is bad culture?

what does culture mean to you?

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TOTAL

TOTAL

TOTAL

RESULTS

APPLICATION

APPRAISAL

INVENTORY

EXAMPLES

DEFINITION

CULTURE CREATION CANVAS

How to use this tool for best results Every company has a culture, whether you realize it or not. Like most things, if you’re not addressing it in a coordinated and strategic way, than it probably isn’t a very good one. The Culture Creation Canvas was created as a means to provide a framework from which to identify, define, and develop your culture based on organizational goals. The information in this document should help walk you through the process in creating your company or team culture by working through the individual sections.

I. DEFINITION Define what culture means to you. What is the culture of a team? What defines it? It is important to get down your initial ideas, thoughts, and feelings about culture, as they are likely to change over the course of the exercise. This section gives a frame of reference from which to work from.  

 Next move on to the two subsections about good and bad culture. Don’t worry about complete sentences here; focus on filling them with free thoughts and word associations – like a stream of consciousness exercise.  The idea here is to define where you are at now. 

II. EXAMPLES This section is meant to help us further define the things that we like and dislike about certain company cultures. It’s not important at this point whether or not the opinions are accurate. What’s important here is what you like and dislike about a company and why.

A. NAME THE COMPANY Start by writing the name of the company. If there isn’t enough space, just choose an abbreviated version that you will be able to identify later. 

B. IDENTIFY ITS CULTURE Identify whether or not you believe that it has a negative or positive culture. For brevity’s sake, a simple plus (+) or minus (–) sign will suffice. 

C. LIST YOUR REASON List why you feel that way. Boil it down to a few words that represent what you love or hate about that company’s culture. 

Repeat steps A-C until you have filled up all the rows or you have a sufficient amount of insight into makes or breaks a team’s culture.

III. INVENTORY Here you begin to shift gears into a more evaluative mindset. The idea is to perform a thorough reflection of the strengths and weaknesses of your own team or company culture. Be honest with yourself and answer the questions as best you can. The idea is to evaluate your team in each of the areas listed. For each attribute, assign a value from zero (0) to five (5); zero being no value, and 5 being completely fulfilled.

A. COMMUNICATION The first column is the communication column. As you set out to assign values regarding your team’s communication, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do we communicate in a way that is Receptive of others feedback and ideas?

2. Do we respond in a way that is Supportive of one another? 3. Are we Assertive when sharing our position? 4. Does my team communicate Without Fear of reprisal or

retribution? 5. Do we express ourselves with Clarity to each other?

B. TEAMWORK This column seeks to address the way your team works together. As you assign the appropriate values, ask yourself the following questions: 

1. Do we act in a way that is Ethical in all of our decisions? 2. Are we Adaptable to whatever changes may arise? 3. Do we show Enthusiasm for the work or project at hand? 4. How Focused and dedicated are we to our mission? 5. How Resilient are we? How well do we bounce back from

adversity?

C. LEADERSHIP This column is about the leadership of your team. This might be your boss, or your boss’s boss, or even you. As you assign values ask yourself the following questions: 

1. Are decisions made Decisively, leaving no room for doubt or confusion?

2. Does the leader of this team show Foresight in the ability to predict needs and problems before they arise?

3. Are the members of this team given a lot of Freedom and responsibility with opportunities to shine?

4. Is this team led with Empathy and understanding? 5. Is the leader quick to show Humility, never hesitating to admit

wrongs, never taking credit for the work of others, and always willing to listen?

D. TOTALING Once you’ve assigned values to each of the attributes, go ahead and total them out. Once totaled it should give you a fairly good idea of where you stand, especially in relation to the other categories. It should allow you to quickly identify your culture issues (should there be any).

IMPORTANT NOTE: A score resulting in less than 15 points in any one category, or 55 points in total, could be a sign of pretty serious issues. You may want to take a serious look at the makeup of your team, or bring in a professional consultant.

IV. APPRAISAL This section will help you define the best-case scenario of where you want to be and the worst-case scenario of where you might be. Going through this portion of the exercise should net you two results: accurately diagnosing the areas that are dense with problems and discovering potential problems that you had not thought of before.

A. POSITIVE ASSOCIATIONS These are the positive words or phrases you hope people would use to describe your team and its culture.  

B. NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS These are the negative attributes that people may or may not, but could possibly associate with your team or culture.

C. EMOTIONAL With this row, what would people feel when they think about being a member of the team or company? What are the positive and negative associations?

D. FUNCTIONAL With this row how would people feel while operating as a member of the team or company? What are the positive and negative associations?

E. SOCIAL With this row how would people feel in a social situation as part of the team or company? What are the positive and negative associations?

The key here is to be as honest as possible, so you can identify issues and brainstorm possible solutions. When finished with this section, compare it with the “Inventory” section and try to identify points of correlation.

V. APPLICATION The “Application” section serves to help organize and prioritize what you’ve learned in order to help you apply it towards seeing effective results.

A. SEE THE NEED Take a look between the “Inventory” section and the “Appraisal” section and identify all the problems identified. Which three are at the maximal intersection of severity and urgency? Ask yourself, “Which three problems need the most immediate attention?”

B. TAKE ACTION Once, you have identified the most immediate needs, the next step is to take action. You are going to come up with three solutions; an immediate quick fix, a short-term answer, and a more permanent solution for the future.

1. QUICK-FIX The Quick Fix is meant to stabilize the situation until more effective means can be put in place. What can immediately be done to improve the situation?

2. SHORT-TERM ANSWER Short-term answers have a higher level of efficacy. What solution can come in and stabilize the situation for a few weeks or months until a large-scale solution can be implemented?

3. PERMANENT SOLUTION While the Short-term Answer is in place and you learn more about the deeper issues affecting the team. The Permanent Solution will evolve over time. For now put your best guess, as that will serve as a starting point for future brainstorming.

If you can’t complete this section at once continue to revisit and complete it as time and circumstances permit. For now, you can start by asking yourself, “What can I do about these right now? Start with simple solutions and work progressively outward.

VI. RESULTS This section is the final stage of the “Culture Creation Canvas.” Now that you have created your plan of action for addressing any culture issues, the next step is to put a plan in place to measure and track your results to be sure what you’re doing is having the effect that we want.

A. GOALS Ask yourself, “What are our culture goals? What measures will you put in place to be sure that you maintain it? What do you want your culture to look like once it’s fixed?

B. METRICS Once the goals are established, you’ll need to define measurable key results that you can monitor in order to gauge how effective your plan is. What milestones can you look to as markers on your roadmap to success?

C. ALERTS Alerts help you to remain watchful that you aren’t backsliding in a negative direction. What are the markers to look for if culture problems are reappearing? What are some warning signs of new culture issues?

D. ACTIONS How will you fix new culture problems if they do arise? Put a plan in place for the most likely occurrences and a contingency plan in case of

something unexpected. A good contingency plan is to run through this exercise again to help you identify the problem and brainstorm solutions.

You are not alone. Hopefully by now you have defined what good and bad culture means to you. You’ve also taken an inventory of the strengths and weaknesses of your team and are able to take all those insights and brainstorm solutions with a plan for implementation and tracking. We sincerely hope that you find the Culture Creation Canvas to be as helpful as we have found it to be. If nothing else we want to you remember one thing. You are not alone by any means in having culture issues. The truth is, whatever you are going through, someone has probably been through worse. The Culture Creation Canvas was created for the Culture Summit by MTCA. MTCA is a creative design agency with strong roots in brand design, marketing, and culture development. We see branding as the core and soul of a business and culture as a natural expression of that brand beneath. If you are interested in working with us on your brand, marketing, and culture development, please visit mtca.co or email us at us@mtca.co Also don’t forget to check out the Culture Summit where you can learn to build great teams that lead to great companies. Learn more at http://www.culturesummit.co or email hung@culturesummit.co