Executive Street, the daily blog of Vistage International, recently featured an article by Andrea Simon entitled, “Business Stalled? Maybe it’s Your Culture!” In her blog, Andrea asks, “Has growth slowed? Stalled? Gone in the wrong direction? Perhaps it is your Culture.”
Andrea recently led workshops on culture change, during which she helped CEOs use an online Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument to examine their cultures as they are today and see how they would prefer them to be in the future. The OCAI helped them each place their company into one of four quadrants.
“On the left are the four quadrants—four very different ways companies organize themselves into corporate cultures,” Andrea explains. “Designed at the University of Michigan by Kim Cameron and Robert Quinn, the OCAI becomes a powerful tool for helping business leaders evaluate their culture today and begin to see where they would prefer to be in the future.”
Andrea then points readers to the graphs below. “They show two very different ways our CEOs viewed how they get things done, the glue that holds their businesses together, their leadership styles and their definition of success. The graphs also reveal the fundamental way they do business, as well as the way they grow their business.”
The company illustrated in the graph at right is very concerned about its team, collaboration, human talent and the “clan.” And it is rather satisfied with staying that way.
The next graph depicts a company that is very concerned about competition, growth, reaching out, beating others, delivering results—very market-driven but not necessarily wanting to stay that way. In fact, its graph suggests that the focus on market-driven results needs to be modified to allow for more innovation and collaboration.
Andrea concludes, “These companies’ graphs became an excellent way to kick start their own visual awakening, and yours. In your head you may realize it is a good time to change—but behavior change and cultural change are both tough.”
To read Andrea’s blog in its entirety on Executive Street, click here.
New York-based Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC) serves clients in a wide range of industries from manufacturing, OEMs, customer care, hospitals, and other healthcare institutions to colleges and service industry companies, among others. One of the keys to SAMC’s success is helping the leadership at companies to “see, feel, and think” in new ways. For more information, visit www.simonassociates.net. You also can follow SAMC on Twitter (@andisamc) or Facebook.
