Culture is often described as the way things are done in an organisation, the values, the leadership style, etc. These statements oversimplify the complexity of culture. It is useful instead to assume that culture exists at several levels[1], namely artefacts, espoused values and shared tacit assumptions.
Level 1: Artefacts
The easiest level to observe is what we see, hear and feel as we enter an organisation. In Organisation A we might find artefacts such as open work space, informal dress code, and people moving from one meeting to the another. Organisation B might be characterised by closed doors, people working individually in front of their computers, etc. At the level of artefacts culture is clear and has immediate emotional impact. However, what remains unknown is the meaning of what we experience, i.e. why people behave the way they do.
Level 2: Espoused Values
In order to decipher the meaning of people’s behaviour and why the organisation is constructed the way it is, one will need to talk to insiders and ask them questions about what we see and feel. Organisation A may believe in the free exchange of arguments and may therefore prefer an office setup that facilitates easy communication. Organisation B may believe that good decisions require careful thought and thus give staff the privacy to really think things through before moving to action. These conclusions may lead one to the suggestion that Organisation A is a flatter, team based, network kind or organisation, in which people feel personally empowered, while Organisation B is a typical command-and-control organisation. But these assumptions may be completely wrong. Both organisations could share the same values of teamwork and customer orientation. Indeed, there can be major discrepancies between artefacts and values. These discrepancies demonstrate that there is a deeper level of organisational culture which drives the overt behaviour. If one wants to understand the organisational culture, one must decipher that deeper level.
Level 3: Shared Tacit Assumptions
Understanding this level requires thinking historically. Initially, the founders of an organisation impose their own beliefs, values and assumptions on the people whom they hire. The founders of Organisation A may have believed that people must argue things out and get buy-in on all decisions, while the founders of Organisation B wanted a highly disciplined organisation that can implement solutions that are already in the heads of their founders. If by this means the founders continued to be successful in delivering products and services, these beliefs and values gradually come to be shared and taken for granted. They become tacit assumptions about the nature of the world and how to succeed in it. The deep assumptions of an organisation are thus the result from a joint learning process.
If you describe Organisation A to people at Organisation B, they might tell you that Organisation A has got it all wrong – and vice versa. It shows that there is generally no wrong or right culture, except in relation to what the organisation is trying to do and to the environment in which it operates. General arguments that organisations should become more team-based or empowering employees are thus invalid unless they show that the basic assumptions on which these new values are based are adaptive to the environment in which the organisation must function. Culture is probably the most stable aspect of an organisation, and so difficult to change, because it represents the accumulated learning of a group - the ways of thinking, feeling and perceiving the world, which have made the group successful.
Organisational culture can thus be more appropriately defined as the sum total of all the shared, taken for granted assumptions which a group has learned throughout its history and as such it is the residue of success. The list below outlines the areas in which cultural assumptions make a difference:
External Survival Issues
Internal Integration Issues
Deeper Underlying Assumptions
Organisational Culture vs. Individual Culture
In the process of growing up individuals also become members of cultural units that leave their residue on their personality and personal outlook which can leave a significant imprint on the organisational culture of their employer. A useful exercise in this context is for members of an organisation to ask themselves what groups and communities they belong to and identify with, paying special attention to their occupational groups. Lawyers, engineers, etc. usually value the culture of their occupational groups and cling on to those cultures even when entering a new organisation. Consequently, when we advocate changing culture, we are, in effect, asking entire groups and communities alter one of their share characteristics – which explains why cultural change is so difficult and triggers so much resistance.
How to Assess Organisational Culture
Cultural assessment comes into play when an organisation identifies problems in how it operates or in relation to a strategic self-assessment, e.g. in the context of a transition process, or a more general reform process affecting the Public Sector. A tool used frequently in the context of cultural assessments is the survey. Despite their popularity surveys are ineffective in assessing organisational culture.
Firstly, as the model described in the above shows, culture covers all aspects of what an organisation learns over its history. A questionnaire grappling with all those aspects would involve hundred of questions and might still not reveal the important cultural dimensions of the organisation. Secondly, asking individuals about a group phenomenon is inefficient. It would seem more practical to elicit such information from the group concerned by asking broad questions about organisational functioning and find out where there is consensus. Also, as deep cultural assumption are implicit and mostly outside of peoples’ awareness, individuals will not be able to access them easily. Thirdly, what staff complains about in a survey may simply not be changeable. Even where employees wish to have more teamwork, in most organisational cultures practices such as measuring team instead of individual performance don’t exist because the systems were built on deep assumptions of hierarchy, tight controls, managerial prerogatives, limited communication to employees and the assumption that management and employees are basically in conflict anyway. These assumptions are likely to be embedded deeply and almost impossible to change.
A more valid and efficient way for managers or staff to decipher culture is to get together with a few colleagues, where possible also involving newcomers to the organisation, to bring in a facilitator who understands the cultural model as described in the above, and to pursue the following steps:
Step 1: Define the business problem
Meet in a room with lots of wall space and several flip charts. Start with a business problem, i.e. something that you would like to fix, something that could be improved, or some new strategic intent. Focus on concrete areas of improvement, or else cultural analysis will remain abstract and pointless.
Step 2: Review the concept of culture
Once you agree on the strategic or tactical goals – the things you want to change or improve – review the concept of culture as existing at the three levels of artefacts, espoused values and shared tacit assumptions. Make sure all the members of the working group understand this model.
Step 3: Identify Artefacts
Start with identifying lots of the artefacts that characterise the organisation. Ask the new members of the Academy what it is like to work in the organisation. What artefacts do they notice? Write down all the items that come up. You can start with the following aspects:
Normally this step leads to several (5-10) pages of flip chart paper. Tape them so that the culture’s manifestations are symbolically surrounding you.
Step 4: Identify the organisation’s values
After an hour, or so, shift gear and ask the group to list some of the espoused values that the organisation holds. Some of these may already have been mentioned, but list them on pages separate from the artefacts. Often, these have been written down and published. Sometimes they have been reiterated as part of the “vision” of how the Academy should be operating in the future in order to remain viable.
Step 5: Compare values with artefacts
Compare the espoused values with the artefacts in those same areas. For example, if customer focus is espoused as a value, see what systems of reward or accountability you have identified as artefacts and whether they support the customer focus. If they do not, you have identified an area where a deeper tacit assumption is operating and driving the systems. You now have to search for that deeper assumption. To use another example, the organisation may have espoused the value of open communication and open door policies with regard to supervisors, but staff that brings bad news is punished. You may have detected among the artefacts that staff are no supposed to mention problems unless they have a solution in mind. These inconsistencies tell you that at the level of shared tacit assumptions the culture is really closed and that only positive communications are valued.
As a general principle, the way to assess deeper cultural levels is through identifying the inconsistencies and conflicts you observe between overt behaviour, policies, rules and practices (the artefacts) and the espoused values as formulated in vision statements, policies and other managerial communications. You must then identify what is driving the overt behaviour and other artefacts. This is where the important elements of the culture are embedded. As you uncover shared assumptions, write them down on a separate sheet.
Step 6: Repeat the process with other groups
If the picture formed from this meeting is incomplete repeat the process with one of more other groups. A diagonal cut through the organisation can be most helpful when identifying the right participants. If you need to repeat this process several times you are still doing better than when investing time and effort in the design of a major survey.
Step 7: Assess the shared assumptions
It is now time to assess the pattern of shared basic assumptions you have identified in terms of how they aid or hinder you in accomplishing the goals you set out in the first step (defining the business problem) Since culture is very difficult to change, focus most of your energy on identifying the assumptions that can help you. Try to see your culture as a positive force to be used rather than a constraint to be overcome.
[1] This post draws from Schein, Edgar H., The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, Sense and Nonsens about Cultural Change, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1999b