I often use the Organisational Culture Inventory (OCI) from Human Synergistics to help organisations see what their culture is and clarify the ideal culture they need to achieve their strategy. Using their OCI data, leaders can see what they need to change to create their ideal culture. It’s a gold standard of cultural analysis.
However, what if you are a smaller organisation, or just aren’t ready to take the full OCI plunge yet?
Is there a way to design a simple, cost-effective culture survey? Yes, there absolutely is.
If you focus on the 4 foundations of a great culture, ask your people to rate your organisational culture on them, ask what makes them choose that rating, then you have the basis for a simple culture survey.
Here are the 4 foundations of culture I use to build simple, easy, cost-effective culture surveys:
- Fairness
- Clarity
- Confidence
- Connection
Fairness
This is such as basic human need that I have put it first. If you are in any doubt about how important it is, consider this: it’s one of our few needs that was present way back in our evolution, we share the need for fairness not just with primates but many other animals, and it’s present in humans from a very young age.
This is your go-to if you think you have a culture problem: is anything, at all, in your organisation being perceived as unfair? Tackle that first.
Ask questions on:
- whether reward and recognition are fair
- if people feel they are treated equally and respectfully
- whether workloads are managed fairly
Clarity:
Everyone needs to be clear on the organisation’s purpose, vision, strategy and values. They also need to be able to connect this to their roles. Clarity on our role, how we will be measured, how we are doing and what good looks like are important elements of a good culture.
Ask questions on:
- how clearly defined roles and responsibilities are
- clarity on what good looks like
- clarity how people will be measured
- whether people are getting meaningful feedback with clarity on how to improve?
Confidence:
Confidence is about whether everyone feels they can speak up, give ideas, suggest new things, raise concerns, and flag mistakes, and to always feel safe doing this.
It’s also the confidence we have in our ability to do what is expected of use and have the skills, support and resources to do our job and achieve our goals.
Ask questions on:
- the adequacy of tools, training and resources people have to do their job
- feeling safe raising ideas and concerns
- confidence that ideas and concerns will be treated with consideration and acted on accordingly
Connection:
We all need some level of connection to feel work is meaningful and feel a sense of accountability to our colleagues and customers. Connection is about feeling part of something and having meaningful relationships with the people we work with.
Ask questions on:
- whether people feel part of the team and part of the organisation
- whether people enjoy working with their colleagues
- relationships with managers
A great culture doesn’t have anything to do with foosball tables, free food or bringing your dog to work days. I don’t think these things add or detract, have fun with them if they fit your organisational culture, but they are not the fundamental building blocks of a good culture.
If you want to do a quick and easy culture check, design a survey on these 4 foundations of culture. As you design your survey keep the following design elements in mind:
- Keep it short
- Use a simple rating scale
- Include free text spaces to add comments
- Keep it anonymous
Follow up with some focus groups depending on what the results indicate. You’ll get some really good insights with very little cost outlay.
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