A very common occurrence we see in the Agile and DevOps communities is starting either an Agile, DevOps or Digital (or all) implementation inside an organization and either never measuring to see if the desired culture changes are occurring or not measuring in a proper manner. We commonly see in small, medium and some large organizations an almost refusal to measure or even look at the culture that currently exists in the organization. A large part of this refusal lays at the feet of the executive management in these organizations. A common reason for refusing to measure the culture lies in what is termed the “mirror image fallacy” which originates in organization behavior. The mirror image fallacy occurs when individuals (in our case executive management) have a false belief that all people are alike or that others share one’s own abilities, beliefs, motives and predispositions. What this really means is that inside these organizations there is not going to be complete buy in for Agile, DevOps or Digital by all employees or that the employees are all on the same page or see the culture in the organization as the executive management team sees it, even though the executive management believes everyone in the organization sees things the same as they do.
In the Agile community it’s also common to hear practitioners or organizations say that they have surveyed their Agile pilot teams or the Agile teams in the organization practicing Agile to gain feedback on Agile and then believe this is measuring the culture. In no way is this measuring the culture in the organization, gaining valid statistical analysis or more importantly measuring the cultural aspects we should be most concerned with. In the case of practitioners or organizations attempting Agile, DevOps or Digital who are not measuring the culture, the simple question is why not? The overwhelming research into Agile and DevOps clearly shows that in order to be successful and gain the potential benefits you need to change your culture. So, we ask, if you don’t measure your culture how are you going to determine if you are making the deep seated cultural changes necessary to be successful with Agile, DevOps or Digital?
Why you need to measure the culture
There are numerous reasons you should be measuring the organizational culture as part of your Agile, DevOps or Digital efforts, for our purposes we will cover some general research as to why measuring culture is so important. The truth is that workplace culture should have a seat at the table and should be measured, just like sales or ROI. An organization’s culture and health are just as reliable a predictor of success as sales figures. As Patrick Lencioni wrote in “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable”: “Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.
Extensive research has shown that employees who work for companies with a strong sense of purpose ingrained into their culture are more confident in their company’s ability to deliver top quality products and service (65%) (critical for Agile, DevOps and Digital buy in), focus on long-term sustainable growth (55%), and have a clear understanding of the company’s purpose and commitment to core values (48%).
Research also shows that 83% of employees working for companies with a strong sense of purpose believe their company is prepared to meet industry disruptions, compared to 42% in weak culture environments.
Research also shows that 50% of employees said corporate culture influences productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value and growth rates.
These are just a very small sampling of the research showing why measuring organizational culture is so important.
What you should be measuring
When measuring the organizational culture, we generally look at the five essential components of culture that make up the overall culture. It is critical that all of the components be measured with openness, honesty and candor.
The five essential components of the overall culture are described below:
Capability Culture – Also termed the “can do” portion of culture, which is the development of both inner (character- and values-based) and outer (skills-based) competencies at all levels for maximum organizational effectiveness.
Commitment Culture – Also termed the “will do”, which informs how motivated leaders and employees are, how strong their senses of purpose and commitment are, and what reasonable risk-taking means within the organization.
Alignment Culture – Also termed the “must do”, which indicates how well aligned goals of different levels and departments are, which key roles are identified and assigned, and how strongly people feel compelled to work at a high level.
Individual Performance Culture – which includes aspects like role models and mentoring, how well leaders walk the talk, and how open leaders and other employees are about receiving feedback from others.
Team performance culture – this component indicates to what extent collaboration and teamwork go into getting things done. Do individuals understand how their contributions make a difference? Do operational “siloes” get in the way?
None of these cultural components listed above should ever be left out or given short shrift in the measurement and assessment of your organizational culture.
The ADAPT Model Culture survey
The ADAPT Model culture survey uses the tried and tested Westrum model to measure organizational culture. The ADAPT culture survey looks at an organization’s culture starting at a macro level and then dives into a more granular micro level view of the organizations culture. The culture survey is broken down as follows:
Breakdown: The ADAPT Model Culture Survey contains 100 Questions broken down into seven major sections, which align with the five essential components of culture we discussed above.
There are 7 major sections to this inquiry:
1. Over-all Analysis – In this section we ask questions such as:
The goals/objectives of this organization are clearly defined and regularly reviewed.
2. Organizational Communication – In this section we ask questions such as:
Are you satisfied that adequate communication is provided about organizational changes
3. Management Team Evaluation – In this section we ask questions such as:
Open, authentic communications with each other, and their subordinates.
4. Work Group Assessment – In this section we ask questions such as:
The atmosphere and interpersonal relations in my group are friendly and cooperative.
5. Managerial Self-Perception – In this section we ask questions such as:
Do you take responsibility to ensure that the employees you manage make their best contribution toward achieving organizational goals and production targets?
6. Organizational Relations – In this section we ask questions such as:
Employees usually “level” in their communications with management, providing authentic feedback.
7. Organizational Changes – In this section we ask questions such as:
The organization does seek adequate input from employees on those changes that affect them, or they are to implement.
As an example of how the ADAPT culture survey helps us in an Agile, DevOps or Digital movement in an organization, is its ability to help identify and fix what we term the “finger and mirror” issue we see in many organizations. When the organization members take the culture survey, what we often see is that the measurement at the individual, team and group level will show lots of finger pointing at other individuals, teams and groups, through the ADAPT Model we can hold up a mirror to the individuals, teams and groups pointing fingers and show them how their own actions have contributed to the problems they are blaming others for.
While a culture survey is not the only tool that should be used to measure the organizational culture, it should be a central aspect of this effort.