Measuring culture
You can’t create a future-fit culture if you can't see where to focus. But are attempts to measure culture a help or hindrance..?
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind.” — Lord Kelvin
William Thomson (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) 1st Baron Kelvin, OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, FRSE was a mathematician, mathematical physicist, and engineer.
He received the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1883, was President of the Royal Society from 1890-1895, and in 1892 was the first British scientist to be elevated to the House of Lords. 1
Alongside these eminently distinguished credentials, he was also convinced that X-Rays would be proved a hoax, and in 1896 wrote “I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning”.
Then in 1902, just a year before the Wright Brothers’ first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft, he doubled down: “No balloon and no aeroplane will ever be practically successful.”
Kelvin could well have been the inspiration for Clarke’s first law:
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” 2
As an Electrical and Electronic Engineering graduate myself, I’d be the first to admit that Kelvin’s notion of measurement definitely has its place.
But when it comes to an organisation’s culture, measurement attempts can do more harm than good, with “the numbers” blinding you to what’s really going on…
When I’m asked what cultural assessment tools I recommend, I have to admit to very mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the idea of having ways to quickly gain insight into ‘the way we do things round here’ is hugely attractive.
On the other hand, and especially in the wrong hands, attempts to measure culture can seriously backfire.
I’ve written previously about the dark side of organisational measurement in general, and how it can suck the life out of a place. 3
But there are serious further problems when it comes to trying to measure culture.
Problem #1: People don't always know what they do.
Chris Argyris, one of the founding fathers of Organisational Development, often highlighted the difference between people’s espoused theory — what they say they do, and their theory in-use — what they actually do in practice. 4
His observations throughout half a century of organisational consulting was that there’s often a significant gap between the two.
Not only that, but people typically fail to notice this gap themselves, which Argyris attributes to them “covering up the gap, and then covering up the cover up”.
Problem #2: Even if people know what they do, they don't always know why they do it.
Most people will be able to post hoc rationalise why they did what they did, but it probably won't be really why they did it.
That’s because a significant influence in why we do what we do stems from unconscious, tacit, embodied factors of which we’re unaware.
Problem #3: The experiential context in which data collection occurs.
If you ask people to describe what they see going on in the organisation, their reports will be a mixture of:
What they actually see (but note problems #1 & #2 above)
What they think they should say in order to get what they want (career progression, more respect, more money, etc.)
What they think they should say in order to avoid getting what they don't want (trouble, punishment, unpleasant tasks, etc.)
What they think they shouldn’t say at all (don't rock the boat, don't stick your neck out, keep your head down, etc.)
The above offers ample, rich, and varied scope for impression management - people adjusting their behaviour in an effort to ‘create the right impression’ about their intentions, motives, character, etc. 5
Problem #4: Sense making gets expropriated by outsiders
In a future-fit culture of innovation, agility and adaptiveness, sense making, decision making & action taking must be tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded, and widely distributed throughout the organisation.
That won’t happen if external experts with culture assessment tools & methods expropriate sense making from people within the organisation. 6
When this happens, people in the organisation fail to develop not only their sense making muscles but also their capacity for iterating and improving the integration of sense making, decision making & action taking.
When we gather data about others, but fail to validate the sense we make of it with them directly, there's a significant risk we’ll make sense of it in ways that don’t make sense.
That’s why, ever since the first client asked me if I could “come and make our people behave more like your people” over 35 years ago 7, my preferred approach to assessing current culture has been talking to people.
I’ve always found it the best way to ensure that any insights into the system of mindsets forming people’s awareness of “the way we do things round here” are as free as possible of the kind of biases highlighted in Problems #1-3 above.
This is absolutely essential for identifying who the genuine key influencers are - the few people in any organisational community whose mindsets, attitudes and behaviours, systemically affect everyone and everything else. 8
I have serious doubts as to whether any questionnaire would get someone to divulge their disgust and distrust of the Head of HR who, when visiting a facility where the team were regularly shot at by local terrorist groups, complained bitterly and repeatedly that there was nowhere to plug in her hairdryer… 9
When helping organisations create future-fit cultures, I usually ask people about their past experience of being interviewed by consultants.
In particular, I ask what feedback they received, or outcomes they observed, that they could relate back to the input they’d provided.
In other words, what evidence they saw that the sense making, decision making & action taking loop had been closed effectively.
In the vast majority of cases, the answer is ‘none’.
In fact, more often than not, the decisions taken as a result of consulting interventions seemed diametrically opposed to the input they provided…
What’s truly saddening is that this rarely seems to surprise people. Being tasked to take action on decisions that don’t make sense is commonplace in most organisations.
And we wonder why organisations face a wellbeing crisis... 10
The bottom line is this: if you’re considering using any culture assessment tools, you MUST ensure that any sense making based on them is at the very least validated by the people to whom it relates.
That’s the absolute bare minimum starting point for creating conditions where sense making, decision making & action taking can become more tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded and widely distributed throughout the organisation. 11
The Royal Society is the UK national academy of sciences. It’s the oldest national scientific institution in the world, having been founded in 1660.
The first of Clarke’s Three Laws.
Argyris described these theories of action throughout his career and published works, including his book Overcoming Organizational Defenses.
Impression Management was first described by Erving Goffman in 1959.
This can easily happen, even with the best of intentions, as explained in this earlier post on “Gurus, Gugus and Rugus”.
I joined one of the world’s leading open innovation professional service providers, Cambridge Consultants in 1983. After a few years a client asked if I could help 'get their people to behave more like our people' (i.e. adaptive, innovative, agile), launching the career path I’ve been on ever since.
Focusing on the key influencers, not necessarily in the most senior positions, is essential to create the conditions for emergence of a future-fit culture.
An actual real-life case that, although admittedly more dramatic than most, reveals the kind of gulf that often exists between operational business units and HR.
Most organisations have wellbeing programmes - maybe free gym or yoga classes. But these often amount to ‘free wellington boots’ for wading through organisational crap that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
These are the essential attributes of a future-fit culture of innovation, agility and adaptiveness.