Diagnosing Organisational Culture Change

We diagnose organisational culture to enable us to change and develop the organisation.

Why do it

• Understand the relationship between culture and the organisation
• Understand the key characteristics of organisational culture
• Identify different images of organisations and how these relates to different organisational forms
• Recognise where your organisation sits within the cultural web
• Appreciate structural perspectives on organisational culture
• Understand the excellent organisation and how to compare and shape organisational culture

Organisational Culture Versus Organisational Climate

These are not the same thing.

Climate refers to current situations in an organisation and the linkages among work groups, employees, and work performance

Culture, on the other hand, relates to the historical context within which a situation occurs and the impact of this context on the behaviour of employees

There are many writers on organisational culture and the impact it has on an organisations ability to perform.  Below are two such models:

Characteristics of Organisational Culture

• Member Identity
• Risk Tolerance
• Group Emphasis
• Reward Criteria
• People Focus
• Conflict Tolerance
• Means-End Orientation
• Unit Integration
• Control
• Open System Focus

Source: Robbins, 1993

Where:

Member Identity

Do employees identify with the whole organisation?

Risk Tolerance

Are employees encouraged to use their own initiative?

Group Emphasis

Are work activities organised around groups or individuals?

Reward Criteria

Are rewards performance based?

People Focus

Do management decisions consider the impact of decisions on employees?

Conflict Tolerance

Is constructive criticism encouraged?

Means-Ends Orientation

Is the end result rather than the process employed all important?

Unit Integration

Is work organised in a coordinated or independent manner?

Control

Are rules and regulations used to manage employee behaviour?

Open Systems Focus

Is the organisation aware of and responsive to external environments?

Attributes of Effective organisations

• Bias for Action
• Stay close to the Customer
• Autonomy and Entrepreneurship
• Productivity through People
• Hands-On Management
• Stick to the Knitting
• Simple Form & Lean Staff
• Both Loosely and Tightly Organised

Source: Peters & Waterman, 1982

Bias For Action

Pragmatic, practical & proactive solutions, task of management problem-finding & not problem solving, focus on opportunities of improvement

Stay Close to the Customer

Customer #1, profit secondary statement, talking & listening to the needs of the customer all important, clear identification of the who exactly the customer is

Autonomy & Entrepreneurship

Many leaders & innovators, communication encouraged, Lessons learnt from failure

Productivity Through People

Trust Essential, Empowering staff, Staff a valued resource within the organisation

Hands-On Management

Values/Philosophy of the organisation lived and not just voiced by management

Stick to the Knitting

Concentration on the main objectives of the organisation

Simple Form & Lean Staff

Uncomplicated structures, adaptable workforces with few layers

Both Loosely & Tightly Organized

Tight controls in Some Areas, looser controls in others

Many models

As we have said there are many ways to looks at organisational culture, each has its own merits.

Within the Business Improvement Review (BIR) we look at most of these factors from a range of approaches.  This unique approach helps to provide you the change agent with knowledge with what is and is not happening inside your organisation.

While there are many tools on the market for looking at organisational culture our inventory approach is different.  Not only do we include measures on the perceived culture, we look at how culture is seen by the different stakeholders in the organisation, we also look at how the organisation is performing.

Proposing to change an organisations culture in isolation of performance is a dangerous thing to do. Sometimes the success of an organisation is because of its culture.  Before setting out to change culture we need to understand:

• Where it is now
• Why it is like it is
• What level of performance we are getting because of it
• Why there is a desire to change culture and what we expect to get out of that change.

The BIR is a powerful tool which can help organisational culture change agents on this journey.

Find out more