The collective practiced behaviours of people in your organization creates its Organizational Culture. Those behaviours are based on their values. Clarity on putting values into practice through behaviours supports people to contribute to the desired culture.

When you are clear on your corporate culture, people can understand it, align to it, or decide it’s not for them.  When you are not clear on your culture, people may not be sure how to create alignment.

Misaligned Organizational Culture

When personal values of team members do not align with corporate cultural values, people feel tension. It is difficult for them to feel engaged and be fully on board. Working in an environment that is misaligned with an individual’s values detracts from the feelings associated with meaning and fulfilment.

When personal values do not align with desired culture, there exists what the Barrett Values Centre calls Entropy. Entropy is the amount of energy consumed in doing unproductive or unnecessary work. The Cultural Entropy Score reveals the degree of dysfunction (friction and frustration) in an organization that is generated by self-serving, fear-based action of leaders.

A culture that has misalignment,may show a number of things happening. Generally, there may be meeting after the meeting, people saying yes but not following through, low engagement, sense of tension, concern about one’s job, sense of protection through things like withholding information or ideas, potential sense of tensions, low productivity, and/or more time taken to complete things.

Aligned Organizational Culture

On the other hand, when people are practicing desired behaviours and these align with their own values, they feel energized, engaged, and fulfilled. They come to work not only to make a living but because they know that they can be who they are and contribute in a way that is natural for them.

Some organizational results from creating a desired culture are the reduction of cultural entropy and increase of practiced desired values, higher team member engagement, more productive work environment, improved collaboration, and innovation. This provides a win-win-win: win for the individual, win for the organization, and win for clients and stakeholders.

Understanding and Shifting Organizational Culture

Corporate culture is dynamic. It changes and shifts. The starting point to understanding its current state is to conduct a formal assessment. The proper assessment will demonstrate where there is alignment between aggregated personal values of team members, the experience of the current culture, and the desired organizational culture. This information creates a starting point for exploring for how to start shifting the culture in the desired direction. A trained consultant and coach can support your journey in understanding the culture, supporting exploration of the assessment results, and co-creating a realistic plan for moving forward. Ideally, thereafter, an annual evolution assessment is conducted from which to gauge culture shifts and next steps.

I am a Certified Barrett Values Centre Consultant and use the Barrett Cultural Transformation Tools with clients who are looking to understand their own values, commit to practicing those values, support others to do the same, lead from their values, and create team and organizational cultures that flourishes.

Our coaching, programs and organizational culture initiatives can support you to get clarity, space, and move forward courageously with positive momentum.

Let’s talk about how we can support you to better navigate some of your leadership opportunities, so that you can move forward positively, productively and successfully.

Yours in alignment,

Jamie

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