Culture & Values
Culture represents the collective values, assumptions, unwritten or unspoken “rules” for acceptable behaviors in an organization. There is no one way to assess organizational culture, because this requires grounded research. At ThreeFish, we diagnose organizational culture using the well-established Competing Values Framework developed by Professors Cameron and Quinn of the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. They defined two dimensions of organizational effectiveness – Control vs. Flexibility and Internal vs. External focus.
Broadly, there are four types of organizational cultures.
Hierarchy or Control
this culture values order, stability and internal cohesion.
Market or Compete
this culture also values order, but is focused on external competition and winning. Competition and winning is valued more than internal harmony.
Clan or Collaborate
this culture values internal cohesion. Focus is less on control and order and more on participation and contribution of organization members to drive success.
Adhocracy or Create
this culture is entrepreneurial, focused on future success in the marketplace. They value individual creativity and contribution to drive success.
At ThreeFish, we use Cameron and Quinn’s Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) to assess organizational culture and map it to leadership effectiveness. OCAI helps us profile organizational culture. Hogan Assessments enable us to profile leadership styles. Mapping the two can help an organization assess whether leadership styles are in alignment with the dominant culture.
OCAI allows an organization to profile not only the “current” culture, but also the desired or “preferred” culture. Gap between the current and preferred culture is the opportunity to define actions that can facilitate culture change.
While there are many ways to diagnose and change organizational culture, the Competing Values Framework and OCAI provide an effective and easy to implement way of assessing and changing organizational culture. Combined with Hogan Assessments, the solution can be very impactful in reinforcing or changing organizational culture.
We work with organizations who are interested in defining or refreshing their core values in support of business strategy. Our approach involved in-depth engagement with the top team and cross-section of the organization to build up the value definition. We then partner with our client organization to cascade the communication across the organization and make the values functional, and supporting the desired organization culture.
