Organizational Accountability – Evaluating Organizational Culture, part 3

When evaluating an organization’s culture, it is important to understand that variations likely exist vertically among personnel levels and horizontally across divisions, departments, and workgroups. Consequently, it’s important to establish the degree of alignment between the various organizational levels and business units to the cultural characteristics being evaluated in order to fully understand the cultural adaptation and adherence within the organization.[wcm_restrict plans=”53524, 25542, 25653″]

Culture assessors should keep in mind the need for an alignment evaluation during performance and analysis of surveys, interviews, observations, and reviews. Once these baseline activities have been completed as described in Evaluating Organizational Culture part 1 and part 2, determination of cultural alignment should be performed.

Determining Cultural Alignment

Assessing the relative alignment of cultural characteristics relies on the transformation of qualitative inputs into quantifiable categories. Underlying this transformation are the cultural attributes and traits being assessed divided on a spectral basis. These spectrums typically include 5 or 7 categories such as:

• Category 1: Strongly Disagree
• Category 2: Disagree
• Category 3: Neutral
• Category 4: Agree
• Category 5: Strongly Agree

Transforming the several cultural assessment inputs into these quantifiable categories requires data collection and/or assignment by culture trait/attribute and spectral division. This commonly occurs as follows:

• Surveys: individuals taking the survey assign a categorical rating to specific cultural characteristics through their responses to questions
• Interviews: questioners categorically rate individual and/or group responses against specific cultural characteristics
• Observations: evaluators watching activities categorically rate the statements, decisions, and behaviors of those observed against the several specific cultural characteristics
• Reviews: assessors reviewing documents and data categorically rate findings against specific cultural characteristics

Once data from the several sources has been collected and normalized (to enable comparison between levels and across the organization), demographic adaptation and adherence to the cultural attributes and traits can be determined and alignment between demographics identified. While initially in tabular format, assessors often find it easier to make their determinations using spider and stacked bar graphs. (See Figure 1: Organizational Alignment Cultural Assessment Analysis Charts) These graphs reveal three key features about each demographic’s cultural adaptation and adherence for comparison:

• Mean, Median, and Mode Comparison (spider graph): Reveals the relative difference in strength of the culture between analyzed demographics
• Cultural Characteristic Strength Comparison (stacked bar graph): Reveals the relative difference (tall, narrow bell curve = strong adherence | broad, flat bell curve = week adherence) in strength in cultural trait/attribute between analyzed demographics
• Cultural Leaning Comparison (stacked bar graph): Reveals the relative bias (strongly disagree to the left, strongly agree to the right | right skewed bell curve = positive | left skewed bell curve = negative) for or against the cultural trait/attribute between demographics

Final Thought…

Having determined the cultural consistency between organizational demographics, assessors should seek to identify the mechanisms fostering or hindering alignment. If improvement in cultural alignment is needed, hindering mechanisms should be improved and/or fostering mechanisms put into place.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”53524, 25542, 25653″]

Hi there! Gain access to this article with a StrategyDriven Insights Library – Total Access subscription or buy access to the article itself.

[/wcm_nonmember]

Additional Information

For additional information regarding organizational alignment and aligning mechanisms see:

• StrategyDriven Strategic Organizational Alignment Model
• StrategyDriven Decision Alignment Model

About the Author

Nathan Ives is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.