100, 100: The Culture-Improvement Actions of 100 Organizations
Curious what organizations have done to foster empowerment? How about when trying to improve their focus on customers or clarify where the organization is headed?
Click here to access a first iteration of a project we're calling 100 Actions, 100 Organizations. We (at Denison Consulting) started this project in response to a simple question we hear daily: What actions do organizations take to improve their culture? This first iteration shows a sampling of 100 different actions that have been taken by 100 different organizations we've worked with over the years. Each action is shown in connection to a corresponding 'index' from the Denison Organizational Culture Model, the diagnostic framework used by our practice.
Use the zoom-out and -in buttons to get the big picture, and then to dive in and read the '15 words or less' action descriptors. Also, stay tuned for a second iteration, where we plan to build out an additional layer exploring the impact these actions have had.
Some Context on 100, 100
A real science has emerged over the last three decades to inform the conceptualization and measurement of organizational cultures, or in practice-terms, the diagnosis. The measurement-side is both in good standing and undergoing a major, technology-driven evolution. As a discipline, the next several years seem primed to keep our collective energy on the diagnosis, as we learn how to integrate and take full advantage of predictive analytics, employee listening, pulse surveys, and the like.
And as a discipline, this is both exciting and has the potential to divert our attention away from action in a way that should scare us all, at least a little.
Many of us who work around culture diagnosis are well trained to say - and do believe - that the impact lies in what the organization does with the insights gained. Insight alone can be a very good thing. Insight plus action is surely a much better thing. I expect that the same will continue to be true even as the way we diagnosis evolves.
Perhaps there are some domains in which the actions are self-evident from the diagnosis. If X, then Y. This is rarely true for culture work in organizations. Because culture is manifest in so many different elements and layers, the number of possible actions and the ways in which to go about them, is immense. And this can be true even when the diagnostic process does its job and gets the organization focused in on a specific issue or priority. Then what? What evidence do we (big "we") have to inform the next set of choices about who does what to whom by when?
Of course, any good process facilitator knows the importance of getting the organization to define the actions in a way that commits their own brain power and energy in the process. This should be the way of things. However, this doesn't stop clients from asking for "silver bullet" solutions to various problems. And it shouldn't stop us from wanting an evidence base on which to make some informed recommendations - what we might say are true "best practices". Today, this knowledge seems dispersed and not all that easily accessible. It lives mainly in consultant experience and intuition, and there are also some written case stories, many of which are good and helpful. This is all good stuff but does seem a ways from "generalizable knowledge base".
One way to get started down the path of creating an organized (if not generalizable) knowledge base would be to document and study the actions that organizations take and the impact those actions have. This was the basic idea behind the first iteration of the 100, 100 project.
Noteworthy, this first iteration is more art than science. That was intentional. To start, we simply wanted to document, from 100 organizations we've worked with, one action that each has taken in response to their own cultural diagnosis. We chose one action per organization. Most had several to choose from. We aimed for diversity, so that the actions are unique while also canvassing all elements of the diagnostic model. This turned out to be pretty easy, with a natural symmetry emerging as we increased the sample and got up to 100. We also wanted diversity in terms of the depth, range, and type of actions documented. If you think of Edgar Schein's iceberg, some of these are aiming pretty close to the surface (changing or reshaping the "artifacts" of culture), and some are aiming down in the depths (changing or reshaping the way leaders think and behave).
My hope is that this first iteration is an engaging piece of graphic art and also quite useful for discussing, brainstorming, and planning culture change in organizations. As always, art is more interesting when discussed. Please offer your thoughts, comments, and reactions, and stay tuned for more as we continue to build on this effort!
* Quick thanks to our graphic design partners from Move Communications, Adam Bice and Don Hart, for their work on creating this image. And also thanks to John Manoogian III, whose Cognitive Bias Codex I recently came across, and which inspired this idea and graphic format.
Founder & CEO I Global Headhunter I Organizational Culture Surveys I Competency Development I HR Analytics I ISO 30414:2018 Certified Auditor
7yThank you Levi, this forms a guide on some of the actions clients would take based on their unique business needs. Great article and I look forward to learning more .
Coach (cert.) & Consultant, Seasoned C-suite executive with > 30 years of experience and expertise
7ythank you, but unfortunately links are not accessible. Best
•Culture Transformation•Executive Coach, •Group Facilitator, •Speaker. •Leadership Development• Change Management
7yGreat tool Levi...perfect to help people explore a wider action planning horizon, thanks for sharing and look forward to further updates around the insights generated by the project
Talent Management & Development | Organizational Effectiveness | Change Management
7yThank you for sharing this Levi. It can be difficult to get brainstorming going around action planning. This is a great, simple graphic that can help get people thinking. I am interested to see how it will further evolve. Happy holidays to you and the Denison team!