StrategyDriven’s Cultural Analytics quantify an organization’s shared values and beliefs across an intensity spectrum; revealing the strength of conviction and alignment between leadership, supervision, and the workforce. Such insights reveal the drivers behind what work gets done and how work gets done.
Cultural Analytics reveal an organization’s shared values systems as reflected in managerial decisions, individual behaviors, and codified within operating procedures. Armed with this knowledge, leaders understand why organization members individually and collectively behave as they do – the what, why, and how decisions are made and work is done. Furthermore, they gain insight into organizational performance strengths and vulnerabilities; enabling them to both improve current performance and more seamlessly implement change.
StrategyDriven Cultural Analyses
Culture-based Work Performance
Organizational Alignment
Organizational Accountability
Diversity and Inclusion
Safety Culture
Change Readiness
Available Cultural Comparisons
External Companies (when available)
Division/Facility
Department
Workgroup / Section / Shift
Data Sources
External (others available)
External Companies (when available)
Internal
Document Reviews
Individual Surveys
Personnel Interviews
Activity Observations
Characteristics
Mean, Median, and Mode
Distributions
Metrics are normalized based on the number of facilities, staffing level, etcetera
Assumptions
Consistent data collection methods
Consistent data processing
StrategyDriven Cultural Analytics Examples
Corporate culture contributes or detracts from the organization’s success. Regardless of the company’s written objectives, the existing culture will drive the critical decisions and actions that ultimately determine whether or not these goals will be achieved. Therefore, it is not only important to critically and honestly identify the organization’s culture but to also assess the organization’s ability to achieve its mission goals via its chose strategy in light of its culture. Where gaps exist, either the culture or strategy must be changed in order to achieve optimal success.
Finally, it is important to recognize that there is no ‘right’ culture and that no one set of organizational values is superior to another. Rather, differing cultures each present a unique set of benefits and liabilities that should be identified, understood, and incorporated into the organization’s planning and execution process so to ensure optimal organizational effectiveness.
Quality assessments of an organization’s culture – it’s shared values – require an intimate understanding of how those values manifest themselves in the day-to-day decisions and actions of the organization’s members. Evidence of these values are not only found in the outcomes achieved, but also reside in the organization’s goals and performance measures, standards and expectations, policies and procedures, rewards systems, training, and organizational learning and continuous improvement programs. Identification of where an organization’s safety culture resides on the values spectrum involves:
Document Reviews: analysis of documents and data to identify cultural artifacts informing and reflective of surveys, interviews, and observations
Individual Surveys: collections of questions gathering personnel input on a quantitative (multiple choice question response counts) and qualitative (written question answers) basis
Personnel Interviews: one-on-one or group questioning sessions involving executives, managers, supervisors, and individual contributors to gain their perspectives on what, why, and how decisions are/were made and actions are/were taken
Activity Observations: performance-based viewing and critical evaluation of operational activities by knowledgeable personnel focused on the associated programs, jobsite conditions, and individual behaviors
Culture-based Work Performance
An organization’s culture, its collectively shared values system, profoundly impacts what work is performed, when work is performed, and how work is performed. And the culture driver has as much if not more influence on the results achieved as does the organization’s land, labor, capital, technology, and intellectual property resources.
StrategyDriven’s Culture-based Work Performance Analytics provide insights to the triggers and controls governing an organization’s work. While no combination is ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ each presents a unique set of organizational strengths and vulnerabilities that drive work performance and affect organizational change. By understanding their organization’s culture-based work performance culture, leaders can leverage strengths and mitigate vulnerabilities to optimize overall performance.
Organizational Alignment
Organizational alignment exists when all employees at all levels focus their decisions and actions on the optimal achievement of the organization’s mission goals.
StrategyDriven’s Organizational Alignment Analytics reveal the degree of values and beliefs agreement between the members of differing organizational levels (executive, management, supervisory, and individual contributor) and with those of the organization (documented organizational vision, mission, and goals). Leaders can further optimize overall organizational performance through the identification and resolution of alignment discontinuities.
Organizational Accountability
Accountable organizations are unique creatures; standing out from others because of their superior performance, greater employee loyalty, and higher customer satisfaction. Although the rewards are great, many companies will not embark on the journey to accountability because attaining and maintaining high levels of organizational accountability is extremely difficult.
StrategyDriven’s Organizational Accountability Analytics determine the degree to which members of the workforce individually and collectively act to consequentially promote the timely accomplishment of the organization’s mission.
Diversity & Inclusion
Diversity and inclusion exists when members of an organization act in a manner that recognizes and respects individual similarities and differences such that employees feel they and their work are valued and meaningfully contribute to the mission of the organization.
StrategyDriven’s Diversity and Inclusion Analytics evaluate an organization’s diversity and inclusiveness from multiple perspectives including: demographics, attrition, retention, recruitment, development, rewards, etcetera and their underlying programs.
Safety Culture
Safety culture represents those organizationally shared values underlying personnel decisions and actions that prioritize safety over competing objectives. An organization’s safety culture lies somewhere on a continuum depending on the degree to which the safety culture attributes are embraced by executives, managers, supervisors, and employees.
StrategyDriven’s Safety Culture Analytics quantitatively and qualitatively identify an organization’s safety culture across ten (10) key dimensions as evidenced by the day-to-day decisions and actions of organization members at all levels. The resulting insights reveal the degree of alignment and accountability to the organization’s stated safety policies and goals. Armed with this information, leaders can then make needed adjustments to bring the organization’s safety culture to the spectral point most aligned with their objectives.
Change Readiness
Change is indeed occurring. Leaders who can motivate and inspire their employees to embrace change give their organization a significant competitive advantage. Those who do not place their organization at significant risk of becoming irrelevant.
StrategyDriven’s Change Readiness Analytics provide leaders with invaluable insights regarding the preparedness of personnel (values and beliefs) at all levels of the organization to move from one state or practice to another in a manner that is least disruptive to business operations.
StrategyDriven Organizational Safety Culture Analytics Case Study
StrategyDriven Advisors led a team of highly experienced nuclear professionals from five different utilities and two nuclear industry groups in the evaluation of a nuclear power station’s safety culture. This comprehensive assessment covered the traits and attributes identified by the Institute of Nuclear Power Operation’s Traits of a Healthy Nuclear Safety Culture and evaluated performance of the station’s Nuclear Safety Culture Monitoring Panel as specified by the Nuclear Energy Institute’s Fostering a Healthy Safety Culture guideline.
Engagement Approach
StrategyDriven Advisors, serving as team leader and behavioral scientist, led industry and station personnel in the quantitative and qualitative evaluation of a nuclear station’s safety culture. Assessment activities included a workforce survey, personnel (individual and group) interviews, meeting and activity observations, and document and data reviews to ascertain the strength and alignment of the organization’s culture across ten (10) key dimensions. The resulting report presented the team’s findings supported by the observable artifacts resulting from the workforce’s shared values and beliefs.
Value Delivered
Organization leaders gained an understanding of their nuclear safety culture strengths and vulnerabilities by level (executive, management, supervision, and contributor) and function (division and department); providing them the insights necessary to better align and optimize overall performance across the organization. Additionally, our advisors trained leaders on the subtleties and differences between cultural and performance assessments thereby enabling them to more effectively observe and interpret follow-up assessment results.
StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Forum
Organization members share a collective values system reflected in managerial decisions, individual behaviors, and codified within operating procedures. These values are shaped by both individual beliefs and collective experiences. Taken together, these values form the corporation’s culture.
Focus of the Corporate Cultures Forum
Materials within the Corporate Cultures Forum address the methods to identify an organization’s values and the various value sets, their benefits and their drawbacks. StrategyDriven regularly publishes articles, podcasts, documents, and resources within the forum covering those topics critical to identifying and understanding corporate cultures.
Click here to visit the StrategyDriven Corporate Cultures Forum.