On the Road to Culture Transformation Part I
Critical Properties of Culture
1) Culture is unique to every organization, much like each one of us has a distinct personality, even though Big 5 personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness and neuroticism) serve as our building blocks
2) Culture is learned through demonstration of commonly acceptable and desired behaviors. Likewise, abstaining from specific behavior is also representative of a culture, e.g. healthy disrespect for seniors in a hierarchical organization may be a taboo, while it may be encouraged in a professional services organization that wants to promote innovation and create a transparent culture
3) Culture is patterned, which means various attributes of culture walk together despite being independent variables, e.g. innovative cultures value risk taking as well as collaboration amongst its employees The properties mentioned above that culture can be a differentiator for an organization, can be objectively defined and promoted through management and leadership practices. These cultural drivers can be broadly classified under:
Leadership and talent: How leaders behave, who is selected for leadership positions and the type of talent in the organization sets the tone and sends powerful messages about what is important and what types of behaviors are acceptable and not acceptable
Organizational structure and governance:
Organizational structure creates operational boundaries and drives line of sight to performance metrics at various levels. Governance and decision rights also set the tone for how decisions are made and who has the authority
Organizational policies and processes: An organization's policies and processes set the tone for operations and how work gets done. The level of detail and focus points define parameters and consequences for certain behaviors. Technology is often an important part of the processes that impact the culture People programs: People programs and areas of Total Rewards such as performance management goals, incentives, recognition, pay & benefits levels, communication, etc. will send messages and reinforce short and long-term behaviors that become normative Based on our extensive research across the above drivers, we have identified various attributes that define culture for an organization. Using Aon Hewitt's Culture Audit Tool, we measure relevant attributes on bi-polar scales to demonstrate an organization's current position as well as distance from ideal or desired culture (see Exhibit 1). Outcomes from the Culture Audit Tool are supplemented with intense leadership interviews on the organization's business priorities that enable the definition of desired culture transformation priorities.
Plan for Culture Transformation
As mentioned before, every organization has a unique culture, created by its leaders in line with the relevant business realities. Leaders desirous of transformation need to accept and leverage current strengths as much as build and invest in future culture traits. The Culture Priority Matrix (CPM) helps with the identification and ranking of such critical areas of change while balancing the path to least resistance. Current and desired culture traits are mapped on a low to high scale to create a 2*2 matrix, with each quadrant signifying different priorities for the organization (see Exhibit 2).
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