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M&A Includes Smart Navigating of Culture Issues When Merging

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Acquisitions, Archives, Global Trade Daily

M&A Includes Smart Navigating of Culture Issues When Merging

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Mergers and acquisitions are a common part of the corporate life cycle. For example, in the tech industry, many established companies will expand into new markets by buying startups that are innovating in emerging fields. But integrating a tiny startup into a much larger company can be challenging because they may operate in very different ways. Any merger could face similar issues, even with companies that seem similar. However, companies undergoing a merger can mitigate these clashes by recognizing each organization’s cultural distinctives and seeking thoughtful changes that benefit the combined whole.

A number of years ago, Deloitte conducted a survey to investigate issues of culture in mergers and acquisitions. The report defined culture as “the long-standing, largely implicit shared values, beliefs, and assumptions that influence behavior, attitudes, and meaning in a company.” In other words, corporate culture is how employees as a group think and act, and sometimes, cultural differences can become serious enough to derail integration.

As a simple example, a small startup might have Ping-Pong tables in the break room and provide sushi lunches for everyone on Fridays. These niceties may be less likely to persist at a large company with a stricter culture, so a merger between the two corporations could lead to disagreements between “fun” and “serious.” While disagreements over perks might frustrate employees, cultural differences can be much more serious, such as how leaders make decisions or how managers relate to their subordinates.

The first step to reconciling cultural differences is identifying them. As Deloitte notes, “The most insightful cultural observers often are outsiders, because cultural givens are not implicit to them.” Consider engaging key people from both companies to work on the cultural differences and decide how to reconcile them. This cultural integration team should hash out the details of what the key differences are, what needs to be kept, and what needs to be changed.

Early in the integration process, have the team start identifying how each company operates. Management style is an important aspect, but you should also consider how employees interact with each other and with managers within the company. Try to identify the implicit assumptions that both companies have. Once you have identified these assumptions, determine which ones align with the goals and vision of the combined company. Keep what will help.  Change what will not.

Throughout the process, make sure that the integration team communicates clearly what is happening and why. But do not simply dictate what changes will be made. Genuinely ask for input from employees at both companies. Keep them in the loop. Many people are wary of change, but transparency and being willing to listen will help prevent alienating anyone, which will encourage employees to stay.

When cultural integration is handled well, the combined company benefits from the strengths of the original organizations. McKinsey points out that “A merger provides a unique opportunity to transform a newly combined organization, to shape its culture in line with strategic priorities, and to ensure its health and performance for years to come.” Seize the opportunity and build a new corporate culture that benefits everyone involved.

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Louis Lehot is an emerging growth company, venture capital, and M&A lawyer at Foley & Lardner in Silicon Valley.  Louis spends his time providing entrepreneurs, innovative companies, and investors with practical and commercial legal strategies and solutions at all stages of growth, from the garage to global.

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Archives, Executive Education, Global Trade Daily

How and Why Your Business Strategy Eats Your Business Culture for Breakfast

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Global leaders across the globe have found that corporate strategy is critical to business success. Corporate strategy could be the most important component of success in the ever-changing business environment of today.

Executives evaluate the success of corporate strategy. Corporate strategy reflects the degree to which a company can expand and determine the right pathway to success. The key function of a corporate strategy is to help executives utilize it for goal achievement. In this context, corporate strategy is becoming the forefront of success in corporations worldwide. Success, therefore, is dependent upon how executives formulated their organization’s strategy. Corporate strategy has been a focal point of the executive span of control but has not been associated with leadership enough to make it an integral part of organizational success.

One outcome of corporate strategy is to connect knowledge with other companies that want to share successes and failures. Leaders can inspire organizational members to network with more successful competitors by sharing successes to build alliances and not only enhance competition but communicate best practices as a way of keeping the highest standard of operation in the industry. In doing this, leaders implement a corporate strategy to develop relationships with external environments to identify new opportunities that occur in an ever-changing hypercompetitive marketplace. Leaders, in fact, implement a corporate strategy to expand the growth opportunities available to organizations that may be challenging, but, important to close the gap between success and failure. This leads to converting acquired knowledge into organizational processes and activities to improve or discontinue processes that contribute to success.

Furthermore, executives focus on individuals as the major source of knowledge and show how follower’s ties together so that they can affect the sharing, storage, transfer, and apply knowledge within organizations. Executives, therefore, see these connections, and the related shared knowledge and memory, as central to the effectiveness of corporate culture. Executives know that corporate strategy through sharing individual knowledge around the organizations can positively contribute to building a strong corporate culture. Therefore, executives should build an atmosphere of trust and openness and use corporate strategy to convert individual knowledge into valuable resources for their organization to close the performance gap and help organizations prosper.

The key is for executives to inculcate corporate culture within organizations so that information can be found and used instantaneously. Corporate culture enables organizations to promote the depth and range of knowledge access and sharing within companies.

Corporate culture is enhanced by providing further opportunities and information sharing. Executives can enhance knowledge sharing by providing access to knowledge, and stimulate new ideas and knowledge generation, transfer an individual’s knowledge to other members and departments, and improve knowledge capturing, storing, and accumulating, aiming at achieving organizational goals.

Executives that employ corporate strategy can propel knowledge sharing in the company to generate more innovative ideas and solutions for new and demanding issues that come up constantly in our hypercompetitive economic environment. In doing this, executives can employ corporate strategy through implementing coaching and mentoring practices by sharing experiences gained by imitating, observing and practicing. Executives that use corporate strategy have found that it builds a strong corporate culture through facilitating knowledge sharing throughout all levels of the organization.

Corporate strategy focuses on defining and recognizing core knowledge areas, coordinating expert opinions, sharing organizational knowledge, and scanning for new knowledge to keep the quality of their products or services continuously improving. Corporate strategy, therefore, is an essential requirement of corporate culture by which knowledge is shared among people.

However, executives may lack the required corporate strategy to interact with other organizations or distrust sharing their knowledge. Executives are, therefore, clearly the right focal point for developing networking with environmental components by adopting corporate strategy to develop relationships and interactions. The key here is to inspire their organizations as a whole to develop networking with more effective enterprises through employing corporate strategy directed at connecting knowledge with other companies. Executives are finding that corporate strategy creates a shared understanding of problems which can develop an effective corporate culture that enhances the knowledge sharing process.

Through the corporate strategy, executives could build a climate inspiring followers to share their knowledge, and facilitate the knowledge sharing process. Thus, executives can apply corporate strategy to enhance knowledge sharing among human capital and stipulate knowledge to be shared around the organization and with other companies.

Global leaders can now see how they not only can directly support corporate strategy, but it can also cultivate an effective strategic decision-making process, which will enable corporate culture within organizations. Executives can also see that cultivating an effective strategic plan coupled with cultural issues requires developing leadership within organizations—not only at the higher echelons of the organization but at every level. Thus, in light of the increased pressures of the global workplace that inspires leaders to exert effective change at the organizational level, this article points out the vital importance of business leadership in reshaping an organization’s strategy to have access to higher performing culture within organizations. This article also suggests that corporate strategy and corporate culture constitute the foundation of a supportive workplace to improve business success and reduce operational risk.

Standing on the shoulders of scholars before us, I indicate that corporate strategy and corporate culture are major resources for business success and support the positive impact of these two vital factors on business success.

_________________________________________________________________

Mostafa Sayyadi works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies and helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to business publications and his work has been featured in top-flight business publications.

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Archives, Executive Education, Global Trade Daily

Corporate Culture, Knowledge Management and Talent Management: How Are They Linked?

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This article portrays a more detailed picture of the effects of corporate culture on knowledge management and talent management that have been mentioned but not placed in a model in the past.

How Corporate Culture Elevates Knowledge Management?

Culture is the resource that builds upon the foundation that helps organizations prosper. Edgar Schein, one of the prominent management scholars, describes corporate culture as a “pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”

Corporate culture is, therefore, reflected in shared assumptions, symbols, beliefs, values, and norms that specify how employees understand problems and appropriately react to them.

Executives can manifest themselves as change agents who manipulate corporate culture with the aim of improving knowledge management. Organizational culture includes three dimensions of collaboration, trust, and learning. Executives can facilitate collaboration by developing relationships in organizations. Executives can contribute to the cultural aspect of trust, by considering both employee’s individual interests and the company’s essential needs. Also, executives identify the individual needs of their employees and develop a learning culture by intellectually stimulating them to generate new knowledge and share it with others. Executives can, therefore, highly manipulate a firm’s culture to conform to the needs and expectations of strategic goals and objectives.

Knowledge management is enhanced by providing further opportunities and information sharing. Executives can enhance knowledge sharing by providing access to knowledge, and stimulate new ideas and knowledge generation, transfer an individual’s knowledge to other members and departments and improve knowledge capturing, storing, and accumulating, aiming at achieving organizational goals. Executives can propel knowledge sharing in the company to generate more innovative ideas and solutions for new and demanding issues that come up constantly in our hypercompetitive economic environment. By doing this, executives can build a strong corporate culture to share experiences gained by imitating, observing, and practicing.

Executives have found that corporate culture impacts knowledge management through facilitating knowledge sharing throughout all levels of the organization. Corporate culture focuses on defining and recognizing core knowledge areas, sharing organizational knowledge, and scanning for new knowledge to keep the quality of their product or services continuously improving. Therefore, corporate culture is an essential requirement of corporate learning by which knowledge is shared among people.

Particularly, the three cultural aspects of collaboration, trust, and learning play a critical role in enhancing the effectiveness of corporate learning. For example, collaboration provides a shared understanding of the current issues and problems among employees, which helps to generate new ideas within organizations. Trust towards their leader’s decisions is a necessary precursor to creating new knowledge. The key is for executives to inculcate a culture of trust and transparency of knowledge sharing within organizations so that information can be found and used instantaneously.

Moreover, the amount of time spent learning is positively related to the amount of knowledge gained, shared, and implemented. Therefore, executives can reshape, and in some cases, manipulate corporate culture to facilitate corporate learning within departmental and business units of organizations. Executives can now see how corporate culture constitutes the foundation of a supportive workplace to share and synthesize organizational knowledge and subsequently limit the gaps between success and possible failure.

How Knowledge Management Elevates Talent Management

Executives have found that knowledge management is modifying behaviors resulting in newer insight and knowledge. Changing the existing behaviors of followers generating new knowledge is a key factor in improving a firm’s competitive advantage. This is a fact but it happens through the way talented employees are managed by executives. Why is this, you may ask? Because knowledge management is a process that leads to acquiring new insights and knowledge, and potentially to correct sub-optimal or ineffective actions and behaviors that cause companies to spiral out of control.

Executives need to first support this approach for knowledge management. Talent management in organizations is the ultimate outcome of the knowledge management by which it is created and acquired by connecting with others that want to share successes and failures. This leads to converting acquired knowledge into organizational processes and activities to improve or discontinue processes that either contribute or inhibit success. Many executives see talent management as an outcome of various factors such as knowledge management and a climate inspiring innovation and creativity within organizations. However, a more comprehensive approach needs to be introduced to put together the various aspects of potential contributions to talent management.

Knowledge management requires various processes such as knowledge acquisition, collaboration, dissemination, sharing, generation, and storage to acquire knowledge within an organization. A question remains: how can we establish the relationship between knowledge management and talent management?

Well, there are scholars that highlight the strategic role of knowledge management in enhancing the effectiveness of talent management. For example, one scholar by the name of Bayyavarapu at the University of Western Ontario suggests a learning-based approach to talent management to understand how knowledge management is related to various practices of talent management. More importantly, the effective implementation of talent management requires the sharing of best practices and experiences among employees. Knowledge management improves organizational processes by sharing knowledge that can increase both follower engagement and personal development.

Executives can, in fact, enhance knowledge management when they would like to concentrate on sharing it to empower followers in order to build a learning climate. Most importantly, knowledge is managed through “learning by doing” which is more engaging. Executives around the globe realize that they play a critical role to achieve the best learning climate and for improving knowledge management that creates learning and growing the organization. Engaging followers and getting them to participate in knowledge management activities is an important part of talent management. Thus, knowledge management positively impacts the effectiveness of talent management through facilitating knowledge sharing by all executives and employees of the organization. Shared knowledge can contribute to the development of a learning organization in which people continuously grow and develop both personally and professionally. Executives require people who are engaged and inspired to meet the demands of day-to-day operations.

For now, executives can develop conducive learning climates that foster collaboration and knowledge management in which knowledge is shared and exploited. Unshared knowledge is like lettuce in the refrigerator—if eaten and shared, everyone enjoys it, if not, it could go bad and not have any use. Executives found that shared knowledge enables companies to improve knowledge management, and that talent management is highly dependent on stimulating continuous learning within organizations. Executives play a crucial role in elevating talent management by enhancing knowledge management to empower employees to pursue organizational goals.

The following figure provides a snapshot of how executives steering corporate culture enhance knowledge management and talent management.

In Conclusion

Insufficient consideration of the impact of knowledge management on the organization’s talent management has been also exposed. Thus, I suggest that scholars take our ideas and continue to conduct research using executives as the focal point so that academic scholarship can meet the needs of managerial implications at the higher echelons of organizations worldwide.

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Mostafa Sayyadi works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies and helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to business publications and his work has been featured in top-flight business publications.

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Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Executive Leadership, Culture, Strategy: How Are They Aligned?

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Executives are faced with challenging economic conditions today with global competition increasing and the need to be number one or two in an industry or fail to keep up with the market place. This new economic environment may have a negative emotionality that can seriously reduce people’s capabilities in changing and overcoming challenging situations.

To offset the negativity associated with widening the gaps of success and failure, executives that act as leaders can manage a firm’s internal resources (corporate culture and corporate strategy) and use them as an important driving force for business success. This may be the answer executives need but may also lack the fundamental fortitude necessary to be an all-encompassing model to predict customer satisfaction, employee or follower satisfaction, and financial profitability. Executives that embrace leadership around the globe realize that they have a positive impact on corporate culture, corporate strategy, and play a critical role to achieve the best climate for implementing strategic changes that create learning and growing the organization. This effective leadership will be covered in-depth throughout the rest of the article with the main focal point being introduced here as the simple application of executive leadership.

How Can Leaders Leverage the Power of a Strategic Approach?

Leaders across the globe have found that corporate strategy is critical to business success. A corporate strategy could be the most important component of success in this ever-changing business environment of today.

Executives evaluate the success of a corporate strategy. The corporate strategy reflects the degree to which a company can expand and determine the right pathway to success. The key function of a corporate strategy is to help executives with the achievement of goals. In this context, corporate strategy is becoming the forefront of success in corporations worldwide. Success, therefore, is dependent upon how executives formulated their organization’s strategy. Thus, corporate strategy has been a focal point of the executive span of control but has not been associated with leadership enough to make it an integral part of organizational success.

One outcome of corporate strategy is to connect knowledge with other companies that want to share successes and failures. Leaders can inspire organizational members to network with more successful competitors by sharing successes to build alliances and not only enhance competition but communicate best practices as a way of keeping the highest standard of operation in the industry. In doing this, leaders implement corporate strategy to develop relationships with external environments to identify new opportunities that occur in an ever-changing hypercompetitive marketplace. Leaders, in fact, implement corporate strategy to expand the growth opportunities available to organizations that may be challenging but important to close the gap between success and failure. This leads to converting acquired knowledge into organizational processes and activities to improve or discontinue processes that contribute success. Therefore, leadership is pertinent to corporate strategy implementation and an organization’s success.

Does Corporate Strategy Really Build Corporate Culture?

Executives focus on individuals as the major source of knowledge. This shows how followers tie together so that they can impact the sharing, storage, transfer, and application of knowledge within organizations. Executives, therefore, see these connections, and the related shared knowledge and memory, as central to the effectiveness of corporate culture. Executives know that corporate strategy through sharing individual knowledge around the organization can positively contribute to building a strong corporate culture. Therefore, executives should build an atmosphere of trust and openness and use corporate strategy to convert individual knowledge into valuable resources. This will allow their organization to close the performance gap and help it prosper. The key is for executives to inculcate corporate culture within organizations so that information can be found and used instantaneously. Corporate culture enables organizations to promote the depth and range of knowledge access within companies.

Corporate culture is enhanced by providing further opportunities and information sharing. Executives can enhance knowledge sharing by providing access to knowledge,  stimulate new ideas, transfer an individual’s knowledge to other members and departments, and improve knowledge capturing, storing, and accumulating, aimed at achieving organizational goals. Executives that employ corporate strategy can propel knowledge sharing in the company to generate more innovative ideas for new and demanding issues that come up in our hypercompetitive economic environment. In doing this, executives can employ corporate strategy through implementing coaching and mentoring practices by sharing experiences gained by imitating, observing, and practicing.

Executives that use corporate strategy have found that it builds a strong corporate culture by facilitating knowledge sharing throughout all levels of the organization. Corporate strategy focuses on defining and recognizing core knowledge areas, coordinating expert opinions, sharing organizational knowledge, and scanning for new knowledge to keep the quality of their products or services continuously improving. Corporate strategy, therefore, is an essential requirement of corporate culture by which knowledge is shared among people.

However, executives may lack the required corporate strategy to interact with other organizations or distrust sharing their knowledge. Executives are, therefore, clearly the right focal point for developing networking with environmental components by adopting a corporate strategy to develop relationships and interactions. The key here is to inspire their organizations as a whole to develop networking with more effective enterprises through employing corporate strategy directed at connecting knowledge with other companies. Executives are finding that corporate strategy creates a shared understanding of problems which can develop an effective corporate culture that enhances the knowledge sharing process.

Through the corporate strategy, executives can build a climate inspiring followers to share their knowledge, and facilitate the knowledge sharing process. Thus, executives can apply corporate strategy to enhance knowledge sharing among human capital and stipulate knowledge to be shared around the organization and with other companies. The following figure provides a snapshot of how leadership, corporate strategy, and corporate culture are linked in companies.

In Conclusion

Executives can now see how leadership not only directly supports corporate strategy but can also cultivate an effective strategic decision-making process, enabling corporate culture within organizations. Leadership has a significant effect on an organization’s internal resources. Executives can also see that cultivating an effective strategic plan coupled with cultural issues requires developing leadership within organizations—not only at the higher echelons of the organization but at every level. Thus, in light of the increased pressures of the global workplace that inspires leaders to exert effective change at the organizational level, this article points out the vital importance of leadership in reshaping an organization’s internal resources to have access to more effective strategic initiatives and higher performing culture within organizations.

This article also suggests that both internal resources of corporate strategy and corporate culture constitute the foundation of a supportive workplace to improve business success and reduce operational risk. Standing on the shoulders of scholars before us, I indicate that corporate strategy and corporate culture are major internal resources for business success and support the positive impact of these two vital factors on business success.

_________________________________________________________________

Mostafa Sayyadi works with senior business leaders to effectively develop innovation in companies and helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders. He is a business book author and a long-time contributor to business publications and his work has been featured in top-flight business publications.

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Archives, Global Trade Daily, In The News

How COVID-19 is Reshaping Corporate Culture

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The outbreak of COVID-19 is radically changing how many U.S. companies operate.
Public safety measures have closed physical offices and made remote working the norm. Travel restrictions have heightened the importance of efficient technology, communication, and collaboration. Executives have had to pivot quickly, reorganizing and rallying their workforce to push forward in an unprecedented time.
Some business leaders think COVID-19 marks a permanent turning point. And at the center of the seismic change is the reshaping of corporate culture – the beliefs and behaviors that influence how a company’s employees and management interact, says Chuck Crumpton (www.chuckcrumpton.com), author of The Jagged Journey: A Raw & Real Memoir about the Non-Perfect Path of Life & Business.
“The pandemic unquestionably will have lasting effects on corporate cultures,” Crumpton says. “There’s a growing sense it’s a fundamental shift, a new normal.
“It starts with empathy. Company leaders are seeing they need to listen more to their employees’ concerns, which are really everybody’s concerns right now. Many people have fear and uncertainty. It’s an opportunity to be more understanding and build relationships with the people you work with, and from there as a company, being better able to work in new and more collaborative ways.”
Crumpton explains the ways corporate culture will be reshaped in the wake of COVID-19 and how leaders can influence those positive changes:
Providing emotional support along with technical support. While technology is the key to keeping a remote workforce functioning at a high level, Crumpton says how leaders create a culture of mutual support will be a big factor in company culture and the employee experience. “You want to get people helping and looking out for each other,” Crumpton says. “Not every Google Chat, call or email has to be business-related.”
More, and better, communication. Working remotely, with managers and employees at different locations, places an emphasis on focused and more precise communication – even over-communication if necessary – to keep operations flowing, Crumpton says. “The use of video conferencing is very effective, keeping everyone connected and agendas targeted,” he says. “It increases responsiveness, attention span, and strengthens collaboration.”
More of a family feeling. “Working from home personalizes the workplace, partly because you are working from your personal space, and the imaginary line between family and work is basically gone,” Crumpton says. “People are out of their shell now, more relatable. Colleagues and clients are happy to share a screen with their kids or pets in the background. There’s a blending of the personal and professional, and it’s liberating.”
Better collaboration. “Your relationship with your teammates will improve,” Crumpton says. “Fighting a common enemy, the coronavirus, creates bonds in relationships. Everyone being in this together brings new levels of connection with colleagues and clients. You’re happy to see each other onscreen during this period of physical isolation, and that feeling can be brought forward when things settle down. The bond strengthens with teammates also by having worked together to solve problems and be proactive during difficult times. That means better collaboration and more enthusiasm for teamwork and shared success.”
“This crisis has challenged us in seemingly every way,” Crumpton says. “It’s been sudden, profound, and life-changing. Companies have been forced to make major changes, and in the process, they’re seeing the workplace and the world differently. It’s a great opportunity for growth and positive, permanent change.”
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Chuck Crumpton (www.chuckcrumpton.com) is the founder and CEO of Medpoint, LLC, a global consulting firm serving medical device and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He is the author of The Jagged Journey: A Raw & Real Memoir about the Non-Perfect Path of Life & Business. He’s a featured keynote and session speaker at multi-industry events in the U.S., Europe and Asia for global organizations.
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Archives, Global Trade Daily, Special Reports

How to Measure Your Organizational Culture and Values

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The importance of a strong corporate culture and value is undeniable. Undoubtedly, cultivating corporate culture and values takes time, but the result is so much worth it.

Culture IQ researched the results from different companies with a strong organizational culture and values to find that:

-collaboration, work environment, and mission and value alignment are 20% higher at companies with strong cultures

-companies with established corporate cultures saw a 4 times increase in revenue growth

-if a company has appeared on The Best Place to Work list, its stock value increased by 75%

-companies that have strong employer brands have a 50% lower cost per hire

-82% of company leaders believe that culture is a potential competitive advantage

Of course, all corporate cultures are different, depending on how you want to organize your workers and which working environment you want to create. Organizational cultures and values even differ from one country to another.

In one of our recent articles we took a look at the current state of corporate culture in the U.S. While it is quite different from what other countries have as a norm for corporate culture, there is one prerequisite in all organizational culture cases that makes it strong – corporate culture analysis.

To do it, there are several methodologies that can help you take a look at your corporate culture and values.

BNS to Measure Positive and Potentially Limiting Values

BNS (Business Needs Scorecard) is one of the most precise methods to measure organizational values. This method is designed to identify and elaborate on the positive and potentially limiting values to outline the desired and not desired corporate values.

Myctt Values Centre recognizes BNS as a diagnostic tool in cultural value assessment that uses 6 sections to categorize positive and potentially limiting values:

-Finance – values that impact the growth of the company in terms of profits and financial performance.

-Fitness – values that describe productivity and the general performance of your employees.

-External relationships – values that affect your company’s relationship with outside players, including partners and customers.

-Evolution – values that impact creativity and innovation of your company as well as its growth in comparison to your competitors.

-Culture – values that influence communication and trust between the employees and corporate leaders.

-Contribution to society – the alignment of your corporate values with the values of society.

This method allows you to perform a comprehensive analysis of your corporate values, especially from the perspective of leadership and what it takes for you to observe these values as a leader.

OCAI Method to Measure Organizational Culture

Another issue is measuring the methods that dominate and dominate in your organizational culture, in other words – your active and passive values.

Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument or OCAI is a method that can help you do exactly that. It uses the so-called Competing Values Framework. “OCAI is a validated method of assessing organizational culture, actively used by over 10,000 companies. We’ve used it for several years, and it’s been one of the most precise ways to measure values”, says Claire Jefferson, an HR manager at Axonim, an electronic device service company.

This method uses a diagram, which helps you identify the direction that your organizational values work towards:

Image credit: OCAI-Online

As a result, you get an answer, which corporate culture dominates in your company, indicating the changes that need to be made to create the organizational culture you aspire to have.

Employee Surveys for Precise Engagement Rates

Who knows your organizational culture and values better than your employees?

Surveying employees is one of the most informative and precise ways to measure organizational culture. Besides, you actively engage your employees in creating your organizational culture.

One of the most common types of employee surveys is an employee satisfaction survey. This survey can take many different forms, but mostly aims at defining the following aspects of organizational culture:

-The position of your employees in the corporate culture – where your employees see their role in defining organizational culture.

-Motivation rate of your employees – helps you understand how much your employees support your corporate culture.

-Employee insights –what needs to be done and which values need to be adopted to help the employees fit in your organizational culture.

Here’s a great example of an employee satisfaction survey:

Image credit: Template.net

This survey can be done in many different forms. The ultimate goal, however, is to give your employees as many choices to answer the questions, possibly avoiding essay questions.

Over to You

The methods that we’ve mentioned above are aimed at assessing organizational culture from three different perspectives:

-a general analysis of your organizational values

-an analysis describing active and passive organizational values

-in comparison to the methods from above, which are used to analyze organizational culture and values from the leadership perspective, you can also take the perspective of your employees by doing employee satisfaction surveys

What is your approach to measuring your organizational culture and values?

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Ryan is a passionate writer who likes sharing his thoughts and experience with the readers. Currently, he works as a content strategist at https://axonim.com. He likes everything related to traveling and new countries.

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Archives, Commentary, Global Trade Daily

Forget YouTube Fame; Social Responsibility is Key To Career Happiness.

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American children and teens, when asked the age-old question of what they want to be as adults, lean toward careers that could bring personal fame or are just plain fun, rather than those that might contribute to the betterment of society or lead to scientific progress.

“While we’re focused on fame and fun, other countries are emphasizing discipline and a good work ethic,” says Dr. Steven Mintz (www.stevenmintzethics.com), author of Beyond Happiness and Meaning: Transforming Your Life Through Ethical Behavior.

The latest example came in a survey Harris Poll conducted on behalf of Lego, where American children ages 8 to 12 picked vlogger/YouTuber as their No. 1 career choice. Chinese children, in comparison, overwhelmingly chose astronaut.

The results are similar to a survey Chicago-based market-research company C+R conducted a couple of years ago. American teenagers were asked about career aspirations and the largest percentage, 20 percent, said they want to be an athlete, artist or entertainer.

Mintz says the emphasis on fame – combined with a trend of many employers trying to create a “fun” work environment for employees – is troubling.

“Is this really what success looks like in the U.S.?” he asks. “Can we reasonably be expected to compete with the Chinese in the 21st century by making the workplace fun when the Chinese, who will likely surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy within the next 10 years, have skyrocketed to the top through hard work and discipline?”

But eschewing fun for fun’s sake doesn’t mean employees can’t find happiness at work. Mintz says that is better accomplished by creating a socially responsible workplace, which he says meshes nicely with the passion millennials and Gen Z have for social causes.

Some ways to help employees find happiness and meaning on the job, he says, include:

Establish an ethical culture. Companies should strive to create an ethical workplace culture where employees are encouraged to serve the interests of the company’s stakeholders – customers, clients and suppliers – and to do so ethically, Mintz says. Creating an ethical workplace starts with ethical values: emphasize doing what is right not wrong; doing good things not harmful ones.

Coach employees on the workplace’s values. Company leaders should engage employees in regular discussions about workplace ethics and the procedures that are designed to uphold ethical practices, Mintz says. “Employers must coach employees so they do good by being good, which means commit to ethical values,” he says.

Tap into the social conscience many employees already have. A recent survey reports that nearly one in five business-school students would sacrifice more than 40 percent of their salary to work for a responsible employer. “Some will work for nonprofits where they are committed to the cause,” Mintz says. “Millennials especially seek out purpose in their employment. I believe that’s because each of us is searching for happiness and greater meaning in life and our jobs provide one of the best sources to enhance our well-being.”

“Although there are troubling signs in our society regarding attitudes about jobs,” Mintz says, “I am heartened by other surveys that show millennials and Gen Z really care about what a business does, whether its actions are ethical and trustworthy, and that a purpose-driven culture exists that puts benefitting society front and center in their mission statement.”

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Dr. Steven Mintz (www.stevenmintzethics.com), author of Beyond Happiness and Meaning: Transforming Your Life Through Ethical Behavior, has frequently commented on ethical issues in society and business ethics. His Workplace Ethics Advice blog has been recognized as one of the top 30 in corporate social responsibility. He also has served as an expert witness on ethics matters. Dr. Mintz spent almost 40 years of his life in academia. He has held positions as a chair in Accounting at San Francisco State University and Texas State University. He was the Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration at Cal State University, San Bernardino. He recently retired as a Professor Emeritus from Cal Poly State University in San Luis Obispo.