When Data Hits the Road of Business Reality

How the Denison Organisational Culture diagnostic transformed an approach to business recovery.

By David Boddy, Creator of the ASIS Business Coach “Creative Conversation Circles” and a Denison Consulting Strategic Partner.

The initial phone call was like many others. Michael, the MD of a UK sales, and distribution subsidiary of a global manufacturer, knew he had a problem with his management team but, as is so often the case, didn’t really know what precisely the problem was. What tools could I offer that would help diagnose with greater precision the exact nature of the issues the company faced and what might be the next steps?

This might sound like manna from heaven for a business coach and consultant, but – and I don’t want to spoil the reputation of consultants – the reality is the consultant is often simply making intelligent guesses as to the issues, deploying the years and variety of experience in the analysis. But truth be told, the consultant does NOT know with the precision necessary! Because the consultant is NOT in the business. Something – far more objective which unearths opinions and perceptions from within the business – is going to deliver a far more reliable and objective analysis of the inner problems which even the MD does not always have clarity around.

So I asked Michael a question: “Why do you think medical consultants deploy scans and X-rays and blood tests before pronouncing an opinion on the state of the patient?” To get to the inner story. To validate or dispel initial opinion. And to convince others simply and easily in the medical team what the issues are and why they need tackling in certain ways. This is what the Denison Organisation Culture Survey and its plethora of data provide when deployed across a business.

In Michael’s case, the data was a shocker!

Across the company, employee buy-in, agreement, and alignment with company ‘Mission’, was worringly low. The wider team’s sense of empowerment and overall ‘Involvement’ was minimal. Despite severe market challenges created by supply chain issues and a dropping order book, the appetite for ‘Adaptability’, creating and delivering change, was a mere bubble when it should have been boiling. And to top it all, operational compliance with the company’s core values (‘Consistency’) was poor and the sense of team integration not much better. In a medical context, the data was showing that the patient needed critical care, had to be put on life support and an infusion of adrenaline was necessary across the management team and onto the shop floor.? Across the Circumplex, the results showed that, on average, when compared to the other companies on the Denison Global Benchmark, 98% of them scored higher.

But the data showed something more significant. Recent joiners, within the last 12 months, had a much greater buy-in. But within a year, they were losing connection and commitment; the data clearly showed that there was a vulnerability around ‘unhappy leavers’. With the cost of replacement of a ￡40K executive now estimated to be ￡70K, that was a budget-busting piece of data not to be ignored. Deeper still, the data highlighted that the sales and service folk not based at head office, but frequently on the road, were disengaged from the company; it was like having a floating workforce without a sense of corporate identity and therefore vulnerable to poaching and unlikely to react positively to new initiatives.

Many MDs would have been knocked out by such results. Michael, however, was more resilient than that. He told me that, for the first time, he could clearly see the problems, and so could the in-house management team. Now they needed to know where to start applying the remedy. What is incontrovertibly clear is that Mission is the first among equals.

We knew we had to look at Mission and in particular, the Strategic Direction and Intent; from that, we can look to recraft the company Vision, and from that, define specific Goals and Objectives.

Underlying all problems like this is poor or inadequate communication. (How many times have readers heard that in their own companies?). But you need to ask why is communication so poor. The data helps reveal the root causes that are not being addressed. In this case – and in nearly all the cases like it – there is a feeling of lack of involvement and engagement in major decision-making. In my experience, it’s not the content of a strategy behind failure; it’s that the strategy is not “owned” by the executives making the decisions and therefore, not “owned” by anyone else further down the food chain.

I developed the Creative Conversation Circles concept so that through the process, all participants can genuinely sense being valued because the process means they are listened to. It follows the traditional values of Dialogue, rather than debate; something perfected and used by the Greeks which maintained their culture for 1500 years!

In the first Circle – where the rule applies that each participant has to agree with something said by the previous speaker before passing the baton onwards – there was a totally open set of questions. Participants had to acknowledge the worth of everyone around the table – and the process provided a way for the inner mental and emotional space to open up so that something new could arise. It usually does. It took three Circles to agree on a revised Strategic Intent; the direction in which everyone in the leadership team wanted to move.

Michael later commented when we had ‘nailed ‘it: “But we could have got there in the first meeting!”?“ Not so,” I replied. We needed all three Circles so that everything that was on the chest of everyone had the space to be put on the table, examined, and accepted or, more frequently, set to one side. You can only really see the space in the attic when the rubbish is removed!

Having an agreed formulation of the Strategic Intent, the data was then pointing to elements of an action plan. By now, the Circles were turning quite fast; ideas were appearing – a lot of them – and they needed coherence, selection, and implementation. Three major “strategic highways”, as I call them, emerged. Various managers around the table took ownership of their delivery. But now, the teams across the business had to be engaged and involved.

Let the Data do the Talking

When senior management is off the pace, teams lower down the food chain easily become skeptical, if not cynical. There was hesitation from the senior management; I invited them “not to underestimate the power of sharing data – even when it is so ‘difficult’. It’s a big reality check – not an opinion. You will rise in the estimation of your teams when you demonstrate your integrity, and when you share your problems.”?The combination of openly sharing the data, trusting the group, and giving them space to generate their own ideas through a Circle, delivered immediate results. As one senior manager reported back to his colleagues: “They (the team members) all turned up. They all contributed. And they all want to be involved in going forward. I am so surprised.” I wasn’t. It’s how it works nearly every time.

I partnered with Denison because, as a business consultant, I knew that in this digital age, independent verifiable data cuts through. But the data is only ultimately as good as what you do with it.?How you deal with it requires a process, which the Creative Conversation Circles deliver.

Michael is a far happier leader these days. He has embarked on a journey of transformation. Because the data is clear, he and his immediate team have become clear. The strategic planning process and the unfolding of the strategic highways allow him to know which road he is on and where he is going. Without the data, he – and the company – would have remained lost in opinion and rudderless in action.