Tag: corporate culture assessment

The Journey of Improvement is Continuous

Kalani Iwi'ula

In today’s ever-evolving workplace, adaptability is crucial—not just a welcomed advantage, but a fundamental necessity for staying relevant and thriving. Achieving success goes beyond just sketching out goals and strategies; it’s about consistently reviewing our progress and adjusting our sails as needed. Developing constructive leaders, fostering unified teams, and nurturing an achievement-oriented organizational culture are now essentials, not just goals. It’s all about taking a proactive approach to improvement, ensuring we’re not just setting targets but actively monitoring and refining our journey towards success with every step we take.

This post dives into the critical, yet often overlooked, step of remeasurement in an organization’s development process and examines how planned remeasurement can drive improvements benefiting both individuals and organizations.

The Importance of the Remeasure

Remeasurement serves as a bridge between where we are and where we aim to be. The process recognizes clear signs of improvement while pinpointing areas that require further fine-tuning. By reviewing and comparing initial assessment results against remeasure assessment results, leaders and organizations can ensure that their development strategies are yielding the desired outcomes and make informed decisions about what comes next.

Encouraging Sustained Progress

Remeasuring isn’t just about monitoring progress; it’s about instilling the importance of continuous improvement within an organization. This approach shifts the focus from achieving fixed goals to nurturing an environment where learning, development, and growth are ongoing processes. It aligns leadership approaches with individual and organizational objectives ensuring that each endeavor contributes to an overarching vision of success.

Throughout my consulting career, I’ve seen the positive impact of integrating a remeasurement process into client strategies. The approach not only empowers clients to take ownership of their change journey, but also ensures their continued growth.

~Roxanne Ray, Senior Consultant, Human Synergistics

Strategies for Effective Remeasurement

To leverage the full potential of remeasurement in developing leaders, individuals, teams, and organizational cultures, consider the following strategies:

  1. Set Clear Benchmarks: Begin with clear expectations and establish specific, measurable objectives. This clarity forms the basis for effective remeasurement and adjustment.
  2. Establish a Cadence: Incorporate remeasurement at the onset and into the regular rhythm of your organizational processes. Once every two years – with at least one pulse in between – ensures that progress is continually monitored and addressed.
  3. Foster Transparent Communication: Open communication helps in recognizing accomplishments and areas for further development, which is essential in the change process, whether it’s an individual leadership assessment or an organization-wide assessment. This transparent approach can make the reassessment process more relevant and actionable. Consider cultivating an environment where feedback is not only encouraged but actively sought.
  4. Utilize Proven Tools: Implement proven methodologies like the Human Synergistics’ Circumplex and range of assessments to dramatically enhance the impact of your development strategies. Embracing Constructive styles aligns you and your team with time-tested practices to support change initiatives locally, regionally, and even globally. This approach nurtures an environment where positive behaviors thrive and leads to a more vibrant and effective organizational culture.
  5. Enlist Experienced Help: With the right expertise, navigating the complexities of culture change turns seemingly impossible challenges into opportunities. Whether you want to boost the effectiveness of your internal consultants or gain insight from an external expert, a network of accredited practitioners can facilitate your remeasure process and guide you through the intricacies of growth.

For organizations looking to develop their internal capacity, we provide comprehensive accreditation in our models and tools, ensuring your in-house team not only understands the path forward but excels in guiding others along.

For those looking outside your walls, our broad network spans industries, states, and even international borders, ensuring a match with consultants who bring expertise and an understanding of your culture and language nuances, regional specificities, and unique challenges.

In my experience, remeasurement is foundational for lasting change. It acts as both a reflection and a compass, revealing the organization’s progress and guiding members towards their long-term aspirations.

~ Mary McCullock, Senior Consultant, Human Synergistics

Moving Forward

Integrating the remeasure process into your development strategies ensures continuous improvement and alignment with broader objectives. This structured approach celebrates progress, identifies growth prospects, and equips leaders and teams with the insight, agility, and resilience needed to refine their organizational goals.

Call to Action

Are you on course towards organizational success? How can you be certain? Discover how remeasurement can guide you in realigning, refocusing, and revitalizing your organization’s future. Contact us to learn more.

Leveraging Expertise for Organizational Success

Kalani Iwi'ula

Experienced consultants bring a wealth of knowledge and understanding that can contribute greatly to guiding organizations towards their cultural objectives. These change agents offer perspectives that go beyond conventional practice to provide tailored strategies that help leaders with their constructive impact or in discovering their organizational potential. By leveraging a skilled consultant, leaders can navigate the complexities of today’s business climate to drive effective change.

For a comprehensive change process, it’s crucial to understand the key components and strategies that skilled consultants rely on. At its core, a professional’s toolkit should include a suite of fundamental elements and methodologies as outlined below.

Charting Course: The Vital Role of Assessments

In the realm of organizational development, valid and reliable assessments form the foundation for organizational culture understanding. They offer clear, measurable insights into the current state of affairs highlighting strengths, identifying themes, and pinpointing areas for growth and improvement. Utilizing assessment tools such as the Organizational Culture Inventory® or Leadership/Impact® not only establishes a benchmark but also paves the way for targeted and impactful development strategies.

Cultivating a Positive Culture with a Constructive Approach

Embracing Constructive Styles as identified by Human Synergistics is central to establishing a positive and productive workplace environment. These four behavioral styles – Achievement, Self-Actualizing, Humanistic-Encouraging, and Affiliative – as described in Dr. Robert A. Cooke’s article “Create Constructive Cultures and Impact the World” are linked to enhanced motivation, engagement, teamwork, quality, adaptability, and profitability. Encouraging these styles is essential for achieving long term organizational success and retaining top talent.

Navigating Growth Through Feedback

Objective, behavior-based feedback, especially when delivered constructively and strategically, is a powerful catalyst for growth and development, encourages learning, and builds trust. When facilitated by an accredited coach, this feedback can align individual efforts with the broader goals of the organization. With their unique perspective, a skilled practitioner can offer insight and new awareness for personal achievement or organizational progress.

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”

~ Margaret J. Wheatley

Evaluating Progress & Making Adjustments

One integral step often overlooked in the improvement journey is the remeasure – reassessing to measure progress and identifying areas for further improvement. By comparing the initial assessment against the remeasure results, you obtain tangible evidence of improvement while pinpointing areas where adjustments are still necessary. Whether for individual or organization-wide development, regular remeasures embed a culture of continuous improvement ensuring that leadership strategies contribute to both individual and organizational goals.

Integrating Wellness and Adaptive Leadership in the Digital Age

In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, prioritizing wellness and adaptive leadership is essential for maintaining productive, creative, and engaged employees. Upskilling the entire workforce, while critically important, isn’t just about business growth; it involves developing all personnel in being resilient and agile, understanding empathy, and being prepared for future challenges. Working with consultants can be invaluable for leaders as they strive to find balance between upskilling initiatives and cultivating adaptability within their teams.

Launching for Success

As you reset your focus this new year, reflect on the past for useful insights and consider the value an experienced perspective could provide.

For more than five decades, Human Synergistics has been at the forefront of driving constructive change worldwide. We’re dedicated to creating lasting change across all levels of the organization with our globally recognized solutions and experienced team. Whether as professional consultants or in-house HR professionals, our trusted network of accredited practitioners are diverse in their backgrounds, experiences, and industry knowledge to support your organizational change journey.

When you’re ready to chart a path for organizational success, let’s begin a conversation.

Challenging Industry Assumptions: Unveiling Cultural Similarities

Cheryl Boglarsky

But my industry is different! … We often hear this from our clients when we present data-based evidence that Constructive organizational norms lead to increased effectiveness, while Defensive norms decrease effectiveness. But are industry-specific norms and expectations for interacting with others and approaching work hindering our potential for success? Let’s dive deeper.

The Impact of Industry Standards on Effectiveness

Many businesses and professional practices strive to adhere to industry standards or the required or ordinary manner of performance in their field. For example, the medical field has standards of care for cardiac repair; similarly, ISO standards for quality management are reviewed and updated almost yearly. These standards serve various purposes, especially providing professional or legal guidelines for what is considered reasonable.

However, when it comes to norms and expectations for interacting with others and approaching work, are they specific to each industry? Can we expect that the effectiveness of Constructive behavioral norms transcends industry boundaries? Janet Szumal’s research on the Global Ideal Culture Profile indicates that people across countries strongly agree on the importance of Constructive styles. And our published research on organizational cultures across industries does not show significant differences across the industries studied. But can we show that Constructive styles are associated with effectiveness more than Defensive styles?

Challenging Fundamental Assumptions

Organizations and leaders often have fundamental assumptions about what motivates their members. These assumptions influence management styles and, ultimately, the behavioral norms and expectations within their organizations. One such assumption is that members dislike their work and have little motivation, leading to a ‘hands-on’ management approach that involves micromanaging to ensure tasks are done properly.

This assumption gives rise to the belief that Constructive styles won’t work in certain industries, leading management to state, “My industry is different.” Manufacturing organizations, for example, argue that their workforce requires close attention to every behavior and detailed job planning to minimize mistakes. They believe that allowing individual thoughts and autonomy wouldn’t increase effectiveness. However, when comparing Constructive and Defensive cultures within manufacturing organizations, we find that Constructive organizations (which encourage individual discretion and initiative) report higher effectiveness in three key areas (see Figure 1):

  1. Role Clarity (and Conflict): The extent to which people receive clear messages regarding what is expected of them (and the extent to which they receive inconsistent expectations from the organization and/or are expected to do things that conflict with their own preferences).
  2. Satisfaction: The extent to which members report positive appraisals of their work situation.
  3. Quality of Service/Products: The extent to which the organization has achieved service excellence with respect to internal and/or external customers/clients.

Figure 1 (click image to enlarge)

Challenging Assumptions in Education and Non-Profit Sectors

Another assumption is that the work itself is satisfying, and members are self-motivated, needing little direction. This assumption is commonly made and applied within the Educational and Non-Profit sectors. Educational and Non-Profit organizations provide services that aim to help others grow, develop, or heal. However, leaders in these industries often hesitate to compare themselves to ‘businesses’ with traditional bottom-lines, as the focus is on social causes, the clients or patients they serve, or the public at large. This can ultimately lead to understating the needs of employees.

Figures 2 and 3 present comparisons between Educational organizations with Constructive versus Defensive cultures and for Non-Profits (NPOs) with Constructive cultures and those with Defensive cultures. Once again, we find that members of Constructive organizations report higher effectiveness in the three important areas.

Figure 2 (click image to enlarge)

Figure 3 (click image to enlarge)

Exploring the Legal Services Industry

Legal Services is an industry known for its competitive and aggressive nature, with firms and brands that uniquely set themselves apart from competitors. However, even in this industry, Constructive organizations report higher effectiveness in terms of the three important outcomes (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 (click image to enlarge)

Constructive Norms: Breaking Industry Assumptions

These examples clearly demonstrate that Constructive norms provide an environment for increased effectiveness across industries. Culture matters, and to enhance effectiveness, regardless of your industry, embracing Constructive norms should be the goal.

Ready to Assess Your Organizational Culture?

How effective is your organizational culture? Contact us to find out how you can use the Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®) to gain valuable insights and paint a clearer picture of your organization’s effectiveness and full potential.

And if you are already accredited in the OCI®, our recently updated Comparative Results by Industry reports can offer valuable insights. These insights will enhance your recommendations and conversations with clients and prospects. Contact us today for details.

References

1 https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/what-is-the-relevance-of-industry-standards-under-the-law-36794

2 https://www.cabem.com/top-10-most-popular-iso-standards/

3 https://www.humansynergistics.com/blog/constructive-culture-blog/details/constructive-culture/2023/04/10/what-do-people-in-organizations-around-the-world-value-most

4 Douglas McGregor developed two contrasting theories that explained how managers’ beliefs about what motivates their people can affect their management style. He labeled these Theory X and Theory Y. While these theories have been refined and updated, for present purposes the simple dichotomy works. See https://mitsloan.mit.edu/institute-work-and-employment-research/douglas-m-mcgregor

5 See Justin Henry’s “Everyone Talks About Their Law Firm’s ‘Culture,’ But Is It Possible to Measure It?” in https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2023/03/15/everyone-talks-about-their-law-firms-culture-but-is-it-possible-to-measure-it/