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Changing Values and Culture
Using the Scaled Comparison
Assessing Awareness of Culture and Strategic Values
The following format is used to determine the level of awareness of and observed impact of strategic values:
| Question: |
Which of the following values are more important to the success of our strategic objectives? |
| Continuous employee training |
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Aligning resources with efforts |
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| Question: |
Which of the following values are more important to the success of our strategic objectives? |
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First The Experts...
This question can initially be asked of an expert panel of executives who have devised the strategy and know what values are required to fully implement it. This will define the priority of values and distinguish them from the competing values they are intended to replace.
Then Testing the Organizational Members...
The same approach is used later to assess the general level of awareness and understanding of the strategy and the underlying values supporting it. The supporting values are deliberately mixed with existing organizational values they are intended to replace. The values in the above example were developed like this:
+ Satisfying our customers
- Satisfying our stockholders
+ Focusing on long term goals
- Focusing on end of the period indicators
+ Continuous employee training
- Training for specific situations
The two values in a +/- pair will seldom be compared directly against each other because they are randomly paired with all the other values in the study. This process obscures the structure of the value pairs and makes gaming of the survey very difficult.
Determining the Actual Level of Application of the Supporting Values
The same process, using the same values, but a different question is used to determine the actual degree of implementation of the new values. The persons completing this part of the assessment may or may not be able to accurately identify the values that support the strategy, but they can still provide good judgments about the values they observe in operation in the day-to-day workplace.
| Question: |
Which of the following values are more evident in the day-to-day behaviors of employees? |
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Gap Analysis — The Knowledge Gap
The first result of the assessment is the Knowledge Gap Analysis. This report shows the degree of understanding of a group or individual about the values supporting the strategy. (The illustration shows only a portion of the report.)
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The "knowledge gap" is seen as the distance between the "+" mark and the black bar for the value. The "Gap %" is the metric, and is shown for each value as well as the entire analysis.
Gap Analysis — The Values Application Gap
This report shows the degree to which the important values are evident in the day-to-day behaviors in the workplace.
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The "Gap" information can be seen as the distance between the "A" (actual application level) and the end of the black bar (ideal). This "Gap Analysis" report is a visual representation of the numerical results, which exist in other reports. The "Gap %" is the metric result of this analysis, and can be seen for each individual value, or averaged for the entire list.
Closing the gaps between Actual and Ideal is the natural response to an analysis like the Culture & Strategic Awareness. By periodically readministering it, you can see if your efforts are closing the gaps and increasing your cultural support for implementing the strategy.
How do I get more information?
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