With evidence supporting its far-reaching impacts on employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and profitability, culture is now top of the priority list for enlightened CEOs and business owners who understand that a healthy, thriving culture is no longer just a “nice-to-have”.
Here’s a summary of my latest article for Spark Magazine which highlights three reasons why every organisation should conduct regular culture assessments to measure and help manage their culture.
1. WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS IMPROVED
Traditionally, culture was seen as hard to measure and manage. Now survey instruments like the Cultural Transformation Tools from Barrett Values Centre provide an objective, quantitative measure of an organisation’s cultural health. This cultural health score, which is based on the proportion of positive versus potentially limiting values and behaviours in the current culture, can be used to measure, monitor and help manage culture over time.
Culture is now a key performance indicator for many CEOs and executives, sparking a keen interest in prioritising and influencing culture for the better. When it comes to the causal link between measurement and improvement, culture is no exception.
2. FOCUS ON THE RIGHT THINGS
Beyond engagement surveys, leaders need to dig beneath the surface to really understand what underpins their culture. Knowing their “secret sauce” and what to reinforce is just as important for sustaining high levels of performance as knowing what to improve.
“Culture isn't something you necessarily think about when everything is running smoothly. But when things aren’t right you need to look under the surface. You need the right tools and the evidence to understand the fundamentals of your organisation's culture. Too many people look at engagement and then try to influence culture. But to really effect change, you need to understand your culture’s current strengths and weaknesses,” says senior consultant
Rosemary Fisher.
3. INCREASE THE ODDS OF A SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION
Culture has an impact on everything inside an organisation. And like a living organism, it has the power to adapt and evolve on its own. Therefore, leaders have two choices. They can positively and intentionally influence their organisational culture or leave it to chance and risk it evolving in ways that negatively impact performance.
Christopher Gomez, CEO of Barrett Values Centre commented, "In today’s volatile business landscape, leaders need to revise their strategies more frequently. How do you know if you have the right culture to not just enable but ignite your new strategy? Measuring your culture allows you to truly understand your strengths, opportunities, and blind spots. Without data to show the culture you have and the one that will best serve you going forward, you are betting the success of your strategy on luck."
There is now significant evidence supporting the relationship between organisational culture and numerous business outcomes including employee engagement, customer satisfaction, sales performance and ultimately business results. Measuring and managing organisational culture is simply good for business.
You can read the full article: 3 Reasons Why Measuring Culture Is Good For Business on our website or check it out on page 8 of the latest edition of Spark magazine.