Establishing the baseline
From GPWiki
Eclosion | Jim Prouty | Jim Rowe | oA³
Other Techniques From The Expert Network : oA³ || CMAT
Within 4D™, understanding the culture within the organisation is one of the key actions required for the achievement of aligned action and sustained implementation of strategy. If the business culture (the way things get done here) is not capable of supporting strategy then it has to be changed, but before it can be changed you will need to understand the characteristics of the existing culture - the Baseline
Contents |
Different Cultures
All businesses are different in the way that they get things done – their culture.
Discovery enables any business to know what it knows, what it doesn't know and what it needs to know. 4D™ 
Development then enables the business to design alternative strategies that will achieve agreed outcomes...
Decision ensures the business then makes the right choices based on thorough and precise thinking... 
Deployment then makes sure the entire enterprise stays on track.Go to: 4D™, Structured Visual Thinking, Expectation Setting
Individual Work Practices vary from business to business, and Cultural Values can, and do, differ country to country.
By Work Practices we mean:
- Direction - management's style and attitude as it affects employees
- Commitment - personal attitudes towards work and the organisation
- Recognition - motivation and recognition of employees
- Collaboration - cooperation and teamwork within groups and departments
People around the world differ in many ways, but most importantly in their attitudes towards how they perceive risk, approve of hierarchy, comply with formal rules and practice self reliance. These differences in attitudes can be summarised in these Cultural Values:
- Risk - attitudes towards risk taking, structure and ambiguity
- Individuality - attitudes towards contribution and self reliance
- Compliance - attitudes towards rules and exceptions
- Dominance - attitudes towards hierarchy, power and equality
How we do it
Eclosion, who are part of our Expert Network, has developed a unique proprietary tool oA³ which creates a snapshot of both Work Practices and Cultural Values throughout the business to enable you to determine, in the context of a particular strategy, whether or not the workforce, in its present form, is capable of supporting your chosen strategy.
Data gathered on line, in the form of responses to a series of carefully worded statements, provides the basis for analysis. Flexibility is built in to allow client specific questions to be added to the basic questionnaire to facilitate more accurate analysis and understanding of the outcomes.
Sustainable Change
Subsequent interpretation, coupled with detailed interviews with a representative sample of employees, pinpoints cultural profiles and differences within the business and provides the foundation for developing cultural change initiatives to ensure that sustained alignment and strategic implementation is achieved.
When culture “the way things get done here” is thought to be not supporting business strategy, some, or all, of these situations,conflicts and opinions will be apparent at all levels.
ALIGNMENT Senior management v’s senior management. Senior management v’s the rest of the workforce. My group v’s your group. Young v’s old. New hires v’s long servers. LEADERSHIP Managers v’s Leaders. Values and beliefs. Common purpose. Clarity of direction. Clear communication. Micro management. Client v’s internal focus. Team orientation. Ability to fail. Trust. Delegation. Authority /responsibility. RECOGNITION / REWARD I’m not appreciated. Nobody notices. Who really cares (about me)? What’s the benefit (to me) of doing things differently? COMMUNICATION Absence of both vertical and horizontal communication. Message not getting through to intended recipient. It’s the wrong message. It’s just another message. It’s a contradictory message. What does this mean for me? INVOLVEMENT Employees are detached. Employee do not feel part of the process. How can I make a difference? Why should I care if they don’t? It’s just a job. It’s not the only thing in my life. CROSS BORDER We are not used to doing things this way. Why don’t they just tell us what to do? Why do they want us to do it this way? We are all different.
Using oA³ we can objectively analyse and identify the “as is” situation to provide a baseline for the sustained and aligned change that will be required to create the desired cultural environment.
Why do it
Can we deliver the strategy we have just created with the governance, skills and behaviours we have and what will need to change in order to get there? Do we have the appropriate organizational design and structures in order to be agile, motivate our workforce and ensure we are all pointing in the same direction?
If and when Culture and Capability are highlighted as issues in any of the 4D™ processes a Baseline analysis will give you a clear, detailed and impartial picture of what you actually have as a culture rather than what you think you have. The process is easy to undetake, data gathering is done on-line, and interviews with a defined representative sample are used to confirm / validate analysis findings. Once available the Baseline provides the stepping stone to creating the culture that will support your strategic initiative at all levels of the organisation. oA³ allows Organisations to Analyse, Anticipate and Accelerate the process of cultural change.
Baseline findings
All situations are unique. These are examples of findings from a Baseline analysis.
Poor or ineffective management direction and senior team alignment We found that the senior team was unclear about the precise detail of a strategic initiative and were not totally in agreement about its value. We assembled the senior team, got the owners of the initiative to clearly spell out what was planned and why and then facilitated discussions that resulted in a changed initiative, but one which had everyone’s support.
Low level of staff commitment There was no commitment from staff because they did not believe that their involvement and contribution mattered to the overall plan. They would simply continue to do things the way they had done in the past when anything new was proposed. They had been allowed to do this by ineffective management. We explained the meaning of commitment to the staff and how their commitment was an integral part of the implementation process. We got them to commit to do specific things that would be monitored managed and recognised during the course of our involvement with them. The message was also given to management!!
Silo behaviour was prevalent in most departments The entire organisation encouraged individuals to operate in silos and to not try to look outside. Reward and recognition did not encourage out of the silo behaviours. The strategy required a high degree of cooperation between and among departments if it was to be successful. We drove through changes in recognition and reward systems that positively encouraged out of silo behaviour.
Using the Baseline
Analysis of the baseline cultural profile gives valuable insights that can have a material positive impact on implementing sustainable change.
International hotel group – moved their Dublin property back to 5 Star status by determining the cultural issues that were holding them back and then working on the entire workforce to ensure that they understood and took responsibility for their part in the delivery of the required transformation.
Major European bank – baseline analysis highlighted the cultural integration issues created by the strategic initiative of combining their separate Commercial and Private Banking businesses into a single entity with a common purpose serving the needs of a diverse global customer base.
Mobile phone company – understanding underlying cultural issues helped when developing a cadre of in-house coaches who were able to deliver in a multi cultural / multinational / multidiscipline organisation operating in a fast moving technological and fashion driven marketplace.
PR / Communications – baseline analysis provided a newly appointed CEO with a detailed understanding of the cultural make up of his staff to ensure that he new how they would react to and support new business initiatives.
Southern European bank – shifting a business from a leasing to factoring orientation to take advantage of new business opportunities required an understanding of the underlying cultural issues that might impede rapid implementation.
Pharmaceutical trading company – turning the culture of a successful family run business into a more structured and professionally oriented business that would be of interest to Private Equity investors was made easier by knowing the cultural issues that were holding back progress and necessary change.
Where Baseline can help
In almost any situation where a change in the way things will get done in a business is on the agenda, an understanding of the existing cultural profile - the baseline - of the organisation will provide the foundation to build for the future, anticipate problems and accelerate the implementation of aligned actions.
Understanding the Baseline in these situations can be a winning move!
New strategy - a baseline analysis will reveal whether or not the culture in the organisation is capable of delivering on the new strategy.
A new CEO or senior manager - who Needs help in aligning his team for a new strategic direction and needs to understand the potential of the human capital and its cultural make-up.
Pre-merger / acquisition - where the leadership teams from the organisations concerned need to assess the cultural gaps and impact of the transaction against planned transaction goals.
Post-merger / acquisition - where the leadership team wants to take a pulse on the culture of the new company to create an environment capable of delivering anticipated synergies and cost savings.
Private Equity - a baseline analysis will reveal if the existing culture can support the delivery of the higher performance targets required by the new investor.
Underperforming investments - a baseline analysis will reveal if there are underlying cultural impediments to the delivery of required returns.
Outsourcing - when a part of the workforce or a function is being outsourced to another service provider, understanding the two cultures can ensure smooth integration and an early delivery of outsourcing benefits to all parties to the transaction.
Silo Behaviour - identification of this behaviour in groups departments or organisations when it might be impacting business performance.
Workplace diversity – providing a detailed cultural profile of diverse group populations within an organisation.
