Organisational Culture Assessments: What can go wrong?
Rajat Tewari
Founder/CEO, Organisational Culture and Behaviour, EHS and ESG Consulting, Independent Director Author, Marathoner, Engagement Leader (SWASYA)
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“Isn’t an online survey enough to assess our Culture?”
This was a question posed to me recently by a senior executive. His organisation wanted to assess their Safety Culture, and wanted it quickly!
Culture Assessments are tricky, and I can venture to say this ?having assessed organisations across industries varying from Pharma, Steel, Oil and Gas to Aerospace and Renewable energy….and I still have a lot to learn!
Firstly, Culture is about Paradigms/beliefs/values held by the organisation (Yes, consider the organisation like a person!)… these are hidden attributes which manifest themselves through the collective behaviour of it’s employees.
Secondly, employees themselves are unclear of what beliefs/values are driving them. The assessment has to dig out ‘what they don’t know they don’t know’
Just an online survey is woefully inadequate to get a proper assessment. Of course, it is an important tool, but just one of many others, which combine to paint the complete picture. How we go about it also becomes important.
There are three areas where a Culture Assessment could slip up.?
1.??????? Pitfall #1: Lack of clarity about stages of Cultural maturity: The first step to assessing any Culture is the Values framework, or how do we see the Culture maturing for that specific set of values. The Hudson’s Safety Culture ladder is usually followed for the value of Safety. For any other Value (Customer Centricity, Execution, Accountability etc), a framework can be devised which articulates the different stages of maturity. Just having a framework is not enough. We need to describe in detail how people behave in each stage of Cultural maturity. It may even have to be customized for the organisation/industry. This clarity helps us devise the online suvey questions, and structure the face to face engagements with leaders/employees.
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2.??????? Pitfall #2: Ignoring the ‘dilution’ of the online survey: Assuming you have taken care of the hygiene factors of the online survey (restricted no. of questions, customized, non leading, anonymity), yet there are forces which impact the accuracy of the survey:
a.??????? ‘Tick box’ attitude: Some or more of the employees would take the survey grudgingly and just tick boxes
b.??????? Social acceptance bias: Though the survey is anonymous, employees tend to give a more ‘positive’ perspective than what they actually feel
No one wants to be an outlier. Everyone wants to be ‘socially accepted’.
c.??????? ‘Stay in the middle’ approach: Most of such surveys use the Likert scale, which offers 5-7 options (e.g Strongly Agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly Disagree). Many respondents tend to stay in the middle, even if they are feeling strongly about it.
Online surveys can’t be taken on face value. How we segregate the answers into ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ becomes important, basis the ‘normalised’ ?tendency of employees to answer the questions.
But how do we go beyond the obvious answers of the online survey?
This is where the rest of the interventions become important.
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3.??????? Pitfall #3: Improper implementation of other interventions: Beyond the online survey, it is critical to get a ‘hands on’ assessment of the culture by engaging with a sample of leaders, middle managers and workers. This can be done by one to one engagements, Focus Group discussions, reviewing data, shadowing and so on.
The learnings from these sample interactions are critical to ‘decipher’ the online survey results.
Needless to say, these engagements should be done after the online survey, and the approach should be customised to resolve the conflicts/doubts arising out of the online survey data. These engagements also help us to conclude how much the forces (Social acceptance bias, tick box attitude etc) have influenced the online survey respondents, and how to ‘read’ the data.
Ironically, though the online survey is seen as a big part of the Culture assessment process, it is the interviews and FGDs which contribute as significantly to the overall understanding of the Culture.
Comments are welcome!
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GM HSE at pidilite
2 周There is another section of people who always want to state positive because of the fear that even so called anonymous may not be anonymous and they can be identified. Can't agree more with what you have stated.
AVP, Head Environment Health Safety and Process Safety
2 周Insightful absolutely resonate with you Rajat, that's why organisations failed.
AGM Safety at Grasim, Ex. DuPont, UPL & Lubrizol. HSES Expert in Safety Culture Development, Safety Excellence, Zero Harm, DuPont Safety Systems, Lead Auditor, Human Performance Improvement, etc.
2 周Well described. Thanks
Helping Leaders Build Strong Organisation Culture and Employer Brand.
2 周Insightful Rajat Tewari. Just to further complement, I believe that the choice of 'which' Culture Assessment Tool becomes extremely relevant, especially when the context is either to focus on 'how cultures grow and change vis-à-vis 'how cultures differ at a point in time'. In the latter context, a practical, short-term strategies, strongly akin to the business strategies/company objectives of the day is required to managing cultural diversity rather than a culture evolution continuum. For instance, a multi-national business will use a tool that helps looking at culture from the cross-cultural management lens at a point in time to prepare and foster inclusive teams, rich in their understanding of cultural preferences of different internal and external stakeholders.
Global Head ( safety and Health) at UPL.
2 周another masterpiece article on the the apt subject of "culture cauldron". let me add one more pit fall for only online assessment. i have seen an attitude of culture being calculative when people are pushed for assessment completion, as the dead line approaches it becomes reactive when the survey master publishes data of per cent completion. i have seen suddenly the number going up as due date approaches. Then online assessment becomes only a compliance mode without really deep dive for subject.. Keep up the good writing Rajat Tewari