Making a work culture diagnosis can be challenging. While some parameters can be clearly defined, there are others that can be a bit difficult to pinpoint. Evaluating work culture is a process that helps organizations differentiate between the ideal and the real culture.
This includes an organization’s expectations, core values, philosophy, and employee behavior associated with a given organization. However, when your goal is to make certain changes to the workplace culture, it is important to measure progress to make sure your efforts are going in the right direction.
Culture is not limited to top management. Culture must be owned by all members of the organization. When culture is known to be a sum total of individual behaviors, it is easier to measure it. Making the transition from one style to another requires great determination, which is not as easy as it may seem.
After a very inspiring training event, it is easy to revert to old habits, because your routine is too complex and you may have millions of other important tasks, but this is where you can change as an individual: by being intentional.
The change must be intentional, only then will it be permanent. The same goes for culture, but how do you know if processes or systems are working or not? Every movement needs to be measured and tracked, and that’s where organizational culture assessment tools are needed.
Elements to make a diagnosis of the work culture
Culture change is complex and each organization is unique, so don’t expect to find any valid science that “proves” that one assessment is better than the others.
We believe that there are many good reviews that will provide you with value as you move along the path of culture change.
I think there are more good evaluations than bad, but unfortunately, it will be difficult to tell the difference until you use them.
These are some of the aspects that we believe should be present in a diagnosis of work culture:
Lean on a theory
Perhaps the word theory is too strong. A solid set of principles will probably suffice. All evaluations point in one direction. They have reflected on what matters and why. Make sure you are comfortable with the thought you want to follow or you will be disappointed with the evaluation.
such as collaboration, growth, inclusion, innovation, transparency, etc. These metrics come from a theory, but you must decide if it will work for your organization.
The balance between the descriptive and the prescriptive
A work culture diagnosis can point a direction, but it shouldn’t tell you specifically what to do. Strike a balance in how the assessment describes what your culture is and what you think it should be like.
The balance between quantitative and qualitative data
Both types of data are valid, and each informs the other. In addition, each person tends to value different types of data, so it is useful to have both as part of the diagnosis of the work culture.
Take control of the diagnosis
There are contexts in which you want to hire consultants and they are the ones who delve into discovering what is happening in your organization and tell you exactly what you have to do. Cultural change is not an issue in which outsiders should intervene.
When measuring organizational culture, you are looking to see things that you have not seen before and help you to be clear about what is important and what drives success. And then you have to step up and plan the actions to make it happen. Make sure you have that control.
Planning and execution
Once you have the results of the work culture diagnosis, you are ready to plan and implement any changes. The evaluation should have helped you clarify what employees really value and want from the culture.
Don’t worry if you are not clear on everything, but this first employee feedback should give you enough clarity to begin the cultural work, which will include these areas:
Processes: As boring as it may sound, process change is where we think you should start. Usually, there are a few key processes that can have a noticeable and significant impact on culture, and it takes those quick wins to build momentum.
Mindset: Your “current” culture is rooted in the individual mindset of your employees and their approach to how work gets done and what is valued. The change of culture implies an active change of these approaches, especially among leaders, managers, and people of high status.
Language: It may be a subset of mindset changes, but culture change will be abstract for your employees unless you give them the words they can use to make it happen on a day-to-day basis. They will need a new language, a new code, in a sense, that keeps cultural change fresh in their minds.
Behavior: This may be a subset of everything, but nothing changes if you don’t change the behavior.
