How to improve organisational culture: assessments, values, and storytelling

Executive overview

Organisational culture assessments are valuable — but most fail at two points: leaders suppress uncomfortable results, or they share results and then do nothing. Both mistakes destroy trust faster than doing no assessment at all.

Get explicit buy-in from the top before launching any assessment: commit to sharing results transparently and to acting on them. Separately, cohesive culture requires aligning incentives and systems with espoused values — misalignment, not intent, is what fractures culture.

Values stay consistent across locations; how those values are expressed and embodied by each team is where healthy variation lives.

Two mistakes that kill culture assessments

• Leaders collect data, dislike the story it tells, and withhold results — signalling distrust and inaction
• Results are shared but no follow-up framework, training, or process is provided to create movement
• Both outcomes are worse than not running the assessment at all — people already know the problems exist
• Secure top-level commitment in advance: agree to share the full picture and commit to a response process
• The commitment to action doesn't need to be fully planned before results arrive — but the commitment must be real

Where to start with assessments

• Ken Nowak's organisation covers assessment design and smart use of data (episode 371)
• Human Synergistics specialises in culture and climate surveys; their circumplex model is graphically rich and well-supported for debriefing and consultant use
• Both offer resources for internal and external practitioners on running assessments well

Risks inside a cohesive culture

• Espoused values that aren't backed by incentives, systems, or policies will undermine any culture effort — the classic example: praising teamwork while rewarding only individual performance
• A tightly cohesive culture can suppress dissent: people may signal "don't work too hard, you'll make the rest of us look bad"
• Homogeneous teams can inadvertently marginalise newcomers who differ in background, pace, or perspective
• Culture cannot be fully controlled — unintended norms will emerge; design for them rather than assuming intent is enough
• Ensure there are safe, confidential channels for concerns to surface at every level and location

Values as the anchor across locations

• Clarity on values must come from the top — not as wall-art, but as daily behaviour the leadership team models
• Values should stay consistent across office, warehouse, and remote locations; their local expression can differ
• Storytelling is the mechanism that carries values through an organisation without mandating uniformity
• Each leader, team, and site can tell stories grounded in the same values — specific, local, real
• Dave Hutchins' story deck (episode 148) provides templates: value stories, success stories, origin stories
• Ginger Hardage's work at Southwest Airlines (episode 350) is a case study in large-scale values-driven culture

Respecting different relationships to work

• Not everyone is or should be passionate about their job — some people work to make money, and that is legitimate
• Culture initiatives that implicitly require enthusiasm can alienate and devalue workers who hold a different but equally valid stance
• The dignity of work — safety, voice, proper tools, respect — matters more than culture alignment scores