How to assess your organization's Culture
Hi there!
This tool will help you assess your organization's Culture and how well it helps you bring your Purpose and Values to life.
At Rule No. 1, we do not believe there's any such thing as a "good" or "bad" culture. Culture is, simply, a tool to foster the behaviors that bring your Purpose and Values to life. So we think of them as either effective or ineffective, not good or bad.
Therefore, this tool is useless if your organization has not already defined your Purpose and Values. If that's the case, go here to access our tool that will help you identify and articulate your organization's Purpose.
If your organization has already defined Purpose and Values, then you're in the right place!
Rule No. 1 practices sustainable consulting. Wherever possible, we source our ideas locally. Or on Wikipedia. Our ideas are all gluten free and never tested on animals.
All images and likenesses in this document are used with the permission of their owner. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is totally deliberate. Rule No. 1 Inc. accepts no liability for the content of this document, or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. Possible side effects may include but are not limited to: feeling a deep sense of meaning in your work and life, a newly developed superpower to tell the story of your organization, ease of mind that you’ve done everything possible to set the foundation for the next era of growth, and generally feeling good. If you experience any of these side effects, awesome! PURPOSEMASTER GENERAL WARNING: THESE EFFECTS CAN BE VERY CONTAGIOUS. IF YOU ARE NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT OF THIS MESSAGE, YOU ARE NOTIFIED THAT DISCLOSING, COPYING, DISTRIBUTING OR TAKING ANY ACTION IN RELIANCE ON THE CONTENTS OF THIS INFORMATION IS STRICTLY ENCOURAGED.
You'll go through 5 steps as you use this tool
1
Learn about culture
2
Take the survey
3
Interpret the results
4
Prioritize
action
5
Get some feedback
1
Learn about
Culture
We define Culture as:
How people experience the organization from the inside. It's the environment you create through all of your actions and choices—the sum total of all internal touchpoints.
Review the following slides to see how we think about culture. You'll then take a short survey to assess your organization's Culture.
2
Take the survey
We've developed a simple survey—one question for each of the 15 elements of culture.
Since your Culture should bring your Purpose and Values to life, this might be a good time to remind yourself of what they are. Write them down.
After submitting the survey, your results will be emailed to you. As if by magic. It might show up in your spam folder. So check there. Because that’s where it might be. But if it’s in your inbox, don’t check your spam folder. Unless you want to. We totally support you doing your thing. With your spam folder.
3
Interpret the results
What do these results tell you?
Do you see any patterns? If so, what do they mean?
Write down your thoughts.
4
Prioritize action
While it's true that the entire culture—all 15 elements—should work as one system, you can't work on all 15 at the same time. That's too much change all at once.
Instead, pick 3 to work on now. You can choose based on...
Lowest scores on the survey
Biggest pain points
Quickest wins
Elements that are most connected to others (where improving one would have a positive impact on several others)
For the 3 you chose write why you chose them.
5
Get some
feedback
Now that you've formed your own picture of the organization's Culture, reach out to a few trusted colleagues to find out if their experiences match yours.
You can have them fill out the survey by sending them here.
If you prefer, you can simply share a printout or PDF of your results and discuss with them. Check your email for your results.
That’s it!
We hope you found this helpful. If you need help assessing your culture and designing it so your organization better lives your Purpose and Values, we'd love to chat. Send us a note!