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Until earlier this week I had not come across an organization that had introduced a formal policy, procedure and guidance note for its organisation design methodology. So it was an interesting read when I received just such a set of information.

The policy document specifies that its main purpose is to ensure that

• Organisation designs (including restructures) take place in a planned, consistent way in line with the Organisational Design methodology.

• The reasons for change are clear and transparent and that the risks of change and doing nothing are demonstrated.

• Design work takes place in partnership with stakeholders, ensuring their involvement at the earliest opportunity.

• Employees and their representatives are fully consulted concerning any changes that impact them throughout the process.

Adopting this policy puts the brake on organisation design approaches based on the back of an envelope redrawing of the organisation chart with which we are unfortunately all too familiar, and directs the work towards planning a thoughtful process that can be tracked, properly managed, and stopped if it's not working.

What I liked about the document is

a) that it is not overly prescriptive but it does make the point that "Whilst there is always a need to act swiftly it is important that swift action is not to the longer term detriment of the direction of the organisation"
b) that it is completely clear that redesign means addressing the whole system as a set of interconnected parts.
c) that it pretty much mandates a governance process starting with a business case for the redesign

The procedure part of the document makes the point that design interventions vary and that tailoring the approach and use of the methodology is much better than trying to follow it as a prescription.

The guidance notes cover engagement, formal and informal consultation processes, and includes how and when to interact with the Trades Unions and the legal position on this.

There are a couple of excellent paragraphs on the return on investment of undertaking a redesign project first making the point that "It is important to remember that undertaking an Organisation Design Project is expensive and time consuming." And then reminding people that it is "very easy to do a direct cost comparisons without understanding the other hidden costs and impact of changing [the design] without having properly considered how this in reality affects the end user."

Some guidance is given on how to give up on a project that no longer meets requirements. This is often necessary but infrequently done – so I applaud this approach that makes it clear that giving up is an ok thing to do in certain circumstances.

The guidance notes give an indication of timescales involved depending on project size, and tackle, and finally they tackle some frequently asked questions.

All in all this is a well produced document that puts organisation design firmly on the map in an enterprise explaining succinctly that it is an activity that needs to be managed and controlled to reap value.

This is a new policy for the organisation and I'll be interested to see how it plays out, and how external consultants used in the organisation are brought into line.

This week I've been working with a leadership team on some design principles for office space that will help drive the business strategy. One of the principles that was suggested was 'no shadows', which reminded me to review a piece I wrote (in my second book on Organisation Design) on the shadow side culture. Here's a slightly adapted extract.

The shadow side culture, as defined by Gerry Egan, author of Working the Shadow Side. , is 'all the important activities and arrangements that do not get identified, discussed, and managed in decision-making forums that can made a difference. The shadow side deals with the covert, the undiscussed, the undiscussable, and the unmentionable. It includes arrangements not found in organisational manuals and company documents or on organizational charts'

Although it appears from this definition that there is something 'wrong' about the shadow side this is not necessarily the case. Think of the organisation's culture as being a brain with a left and right hemisphere: the left being the rational, logical side and the right being the intuitive, and creative. This analogy is used by the company Organisational Leadership who develop the concept by suggesting that the two sides manifest in organisations as follows:

Rational elements: left side of the 'brain'

• Directives
• Strategic plans
• Organisation charts
• Job titles
• Policies
• Training courses
• Budgets

Non-rational (shadow side) elements: right side of the 'brain'

• Trust
• Friendships
• Jealousy
• Fear and insecurity
• Power struggles
• Ambition
• Grapevine

Taking this brain analogy it is clear that having a shadow side is normal and further that organisations are likely to survive best by working with both parts of the 'brain' – in exactly the same way that human potential is realised through the whole brain and not through only one hemisphere. Unfortunately, organisation design projects tend to be initiated and planned using predominantly the rational (left side) of the cultural brain and this means that the mess, unpredictability, and chaos of implementation in the day to day creates anxiety and lack of confidence in project leaders. Those that have the skills to openly engage in the right side of the cultural brain as well as the left are more likely to adapt, innovate, and find creative solutions as the path to their design proceeds. (End of extract)

If you want to audit your organisation's shadow side take a look at The Organization Shadow-Side Audit I have not used this so cannot vouch for it, and I am generally sceptical of surveys used as a standalone assessment process. However this audit has a very full description and I am familiar with the work of Bill Tate and thus would give it a go if I needed to do a shadow side audit. (I can recommend the book mentioned earlier by Gerry Egan, G. (1994) Working the Shadow Side. Jossey Bass that I've read and found very useful.

I just received a report from Accenture called The New Generation of Human Capital Analytics. It synthesizes the work of several writers on this topic predominantly Thomas Davenport and John Boudreau in a practical way with useful case examples.

Reading it through HR and line managers could compile a checklist of things that need to happen to turn raw data into valuable business insights. To save them time – I've had a go at it. See what you think, and let me know.

Reading it through HR and line managers could compile a checklist of things that need to happen to turn raw data into valuable business insights. To save them time – I've had a go at it. See what you think, and let me know.

• Metrics: must be both historic and predictive, consistent across the business lines and stable over time to enable comparisons, benchmarking, and performance improvement activity.

• Analysis: must be across the enterprise not localized, allowing strategic decisions (HR and business) to be made confidently.

• Leaders: must be interested in fact based analytics and good advocates for a rigorous and organization wide approach to this. Leaders must also be ready and able to act on insights yielded by the analytical process.

• Analysis: should be focused and targeted on the few main value added HC activity and not be an across the board process. (This assumes that people have the skills to identify what to focus on).

• Skills: there must be people in the organisation who are skilled analysts capable of providing a useful and actionable flow from metrics identification to metrics interpretation, assessment, and recommendations.

The report concludes by saying:

HR departments are now beginning to look beyond historical data that is a byproduct of transaction and compliance reporting systems. They are asking important questions about what really matters: Do our recruiting processes create an adequate leadership pipeline? Do we currently have the right skills mix to achieve our goals? What skills will we need in five years? Which people and what positions create the most value for our organization?

Showing them a path to answers to these types of questions is a a graphic in the document the "Ladder of human capital analytical applications" that shows how analytical capabilities tend to build on each other from a foundation of good data – data that is accurate, consistent, integrated, accessible and relevant. I think this is true, and also perfectly obvious but is also probably the most difficult step on the ladder to achieve. Wresting different data sets from different software into a consolidated warehouse that people have easy access to is no mean or cheap feat. Thinking about this brought to mind a John Farnham song I used to like – and re-found just now 'The first step is the hardest to take'

If you wanna change the system
You better build a better one
You're gonna meet resistance
But the time will come

You need hope (the will to learn)
Don't give up (the tide will turn)

I read an interesting piece on manager resistance to teleworking on the Washington Technology website. It discusses four reasons why managers (specifically government employees in the case of this article) are resistant to letting their staff telework:

1. Technical disconnects: specifically equipment and security
2. Disconnected employees: impromptu face to face meetings count
3. Management matters: management attitudes on performance are critical
4. Bad apple. Bad news: this boils down to can managers trust their employees to be productive when out of sight?

But how many managers really feel this? It seems that managers are among the people teleworking. I haven't come across many (any) workforces where the managers are all in the office staring at spaces where their staff should be sitting and the staff are all merrily working at home (or out playing golf, or whatever).

In my experience it is more that the managers telework while the front line customer facing staff are the ones more likely to be in the office. You can't have a teleworking receptionist, for example.

I question the surveys that report on teleworking because a) they don't give suggestions on how to overcome the resistance they've surfaced, and b) they put managers and staff into different categories, whereas – as I've said – managers also telework. Additionally, I haven't met a manager who admits to being resistant in principle to teleworking either for him/herself or for his/her employees.

They do throw up some legitimate issues – mainly to do with the technology involved. Good connectivity through a variety of software platforms plus easily accessible technical back up is essential, and often lacking.

I teach at Capella University. It is totally on-line and the technology is set up with that intention. Thus as far as my teaching goes I am 100% teleworking (or in some parlances I am a virtual worker). It doesn't seem to be a big issue for management or for the faculty and staff. We have a variety of platforms – admittedly some work better than others but students get taught, papers get graded, staff have meetings to discuss faculty business, managers give feedback. It all works just as well as any bricks and mortar organization.

So I don't have much truck with surveys that suggest manager resistance to teleworking is one of the major barriers to at least trying to extend teleworking. As a generalization it seems that the where teleworking in a traditional bricks and mortar organization is an 'add-on' to the way work is done then can hit some barriers. But where it has a supportive infrastructure and people are recruited to an organization knowing that teleworking or hoteling is what they are expected to do (either as staff or managers) – then resisting teleworking doesn't even enter their head.

Someone who works at Accenture told me last week that they are now almost 100% hoteling i.e. no employee has a personal, permanent office space to call home. All space is bookable, and that's what people do. They book space if they need it. Accenture had not fallen to pieces, or dropped productivity – it's a successful organization. The infrastructure works to support the business strategy of hoteling. Thus the organisation design is in alignment.

My hypothesis is that if the teleworking infrastructure works well (technology, policies, performance expectations, etc) then manager resistance will be negligible. I'd be interested in hearing views on this.

I was very amused to see the write up of an experiment on collaboration at work in last week's Economist. Two researchers "wondered in particular if the mere presence of a canine in the office might make people collaborate more effectively. And, as they told a meeting of the International Society for Human Ethology in Madison, Wisconsin, on August 2nd, they found that it could."

Once I did some work with Petsmart and discovered that employees are allowed to bring their pets to work. It was an eye-opener for me at that point and then I forgot about it. But the Economist article brought back the notion that pets at work might have some benefits.

I'm not sure how many companies along pets (mainly dogs I guess) but I did Google "pets at work" out of curiosity and discovered several news reports on the topic. Here's one from CBS News :
Bringing dogs to work might make good business sense, according to one survey that found 46 million Americans would work longer hours if they were allowed to bring their furry companions into work with them.

So what used to be unheard of is now becoming almost commonplace. About 20 percent of American companies, including giants like Google, allow dogs in the office. The theory is that dogs reduce stress – and that's good for business.

Here's another one from petpublishing:

In a recent nationwide survey, the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association (APPMA) found the solution to easing corporate nerves and enhancing office efficiency was as easy as placing a pet in your work environment. Having pets in the office created a more productive work environment among 73 percent of the participating companies. Also of interest, 27 percent of the participating companies had a decreased absenteeism rate.

These findings and more were uncovered when APPMA surveyed companies nationwide that allow pets including dogs, cats, fish, small animals, reptiles and birds in the workplace. The survey revealed that the many health-enhancing benefits of pet ownership – including reduced blood pressure, lower stress levels, and improved overall emotional and physical health – also translate in an office environment. All of the companies polled, 100 percent, agree that having pets in the workplace relaxes employees.

None of the articles I skimmed mentioned dogs and collaboration – so maybe that's a new field of investigation (in fact the Economist article made that point) – but several mentioned pets and workplace stress reduction (probably a lot cheaper than an Employee Assistance Program).

I also discovered that the next "Take your dog to work day" is Friday June 24, 2011. But since I don't have a dog and don't intend to get one that's one event I won't be participating in.

I'm now wondering if there'll be a surge of interest in increasing productivity and collaboration through pet interaction? Will companies set up their own kennels? Then thinking of companies in which to do research I wondered whether police dog handlers are more productive, collaborative, and less stressed that police with just their guns? What about the comparison of police dog handlers with mounted (on horseback) police? And so on.

The whole notion of pets at work is one that I find very odd but I'm not sure why I do. My observation is that pet owners spend more time discussing the pets than anything else (unless they have children) and I'm not convinced that pets in the office would increase productivity. I can see how they would increase collaboration but only if collaboration is a euphemism for talking about pets. I remain to be convinced – but I won't be going down that route if the first step is to become a dog owner myself.

Someone asked me the other day what process consulting is. Of course, I was instantly stumped because although it's a phrase and a concept that's totally familiar to me I couldn't immediately and concretely define it in a way that made the term real for the questioner.

So I went back to Edgar Schein's piece A General Philosophy of Helping: Process Consultation, Sloan Management Review; Spring 1990. In his usual, clear way he says that the best way of defining process consulting, which he says is basically a 'helping model', is to contrast it with two other forms of helping models "that seem to me substantively quite different": providing expert information, and playing doctor.

Providing expert information: this he suggests is giving information that is directly relevant to a client's problem. So if the client says – "the performance appraisal system doesn't work to raise productivity in my department what is a better system for my group?" the consultant gives the answer. This makes an assumption that the consultant has the right skills, knowledge, and expertise to do this and the client does not. The client believes that the consultant is an expert with the 'right' answers. Take a car analogy. The client takes his car to the garage and says 'the brake pads are worn and need replacement, please fix them'. The mechanic has the expertise to do this but the car owner does not – he only has the skills to see that something is wrong with the brakes. The issue here is that the client may not know that brakes can fail for reasons other than worn brake pads. Similarly the client may not know that his group's productivity levels may have nothing to do with the appraisal system but in this case the consultant is not being hired to find this out but simply to give an expert answer to a specific question.

Playing doctor: when a client asks a consultant to come and assess a situation, find out what is wrong, and suggest a cure, the consultant is in the role of 'playing doctor'. Schein suggests that playing the doctor role is somewhat of an ego trip for consultants and that the efficacy of the role is based on a number of assumptions that may or may not be accurate. Again taking the car situation the client might take the car to the mechanic and say "this car is taking a long time to slow down, please find out what the problem is and suggest a way of fixing it", the mechanic might come back with several suggestions – too little brake fluid, or there is air and water in the brake fluid, or the brake pads are worn. The client expects the mechanic to diagnose which of these it is (or if it is something else) and suggest a remedy.

Process consulting: Schein discusses this in terms of helping people who know something is awry but are not sure what or why. Once they have been helped work out what is wrong then they are usually in a position to fix whatever it is themselves (i.e. they don't need an expert). This means that the consultant has to suspend judgment on what the issue is, and/or how to fix it, and with the client develop an inquiry process where together they find out what is going on and what to do about it. Schein sees this as a robust way of involving the client, ensuring that he/she takes responsibility for the issues, and feels a sense of ownership of the outcome and commitment to it. Again in the car brake scenario the client might start noticing that coming up to a traffic light the car isn't slowing down very quickly. In this case the client and the consultant would determine together how to tackle this issue – they might decide to look at the car's manual, or take a course on car maintenance, or examine the levels of brake fluid to rule out one of the possible causes. In this process consulting mode the consultant is helping the client learn how to address problems himself and develop skills to apply in future situations.

As Schein points out – in practice consultants are usually moving from one of these three helping models to another as the intervention proceeds.

Typically designated organisational leaders draw on formal authority, control of resources, and use of organisational structure, rules and regulations. But they have to draw on other sources depending on the situation. In many organisation design projects formal leadership is vested in consultants or contractors who are not directly employed by the enterprise. These leaders have to use different sources of power – while they may have formal authority they may not control resources or the use of organisational structures. If these 'outsider' leaders are not skilled at identifying and using the power sources at their disposal they often get sidelined for not being 'one of us'.

As well as the organisation design leaders – those in the formal designated roles shown in discussed yesterday (August 17 2010) or the consultants mentioned above – there are others inside the organisation who can wield power to influence or control organisation design work. These may be people with positional power (i.e. in other leadership roles but not directly involved with the organisation design project) or they may be people who do not have any formal leadership position but who can influence the behaviour of people by wielding other types of power; these informal leaders may have more impact on an organisation design than the formal leaders.

Informal leaders emerge in organisations usually because they have a particular passion or belief and have characteristics which engage people in their cause. These informal leaders are found at any level in the hierarchy because what they spearhead is independent of hierarchy.

Informal leaders muster support not only by their approach but also by their use of referent power (which derives from the belief that people have in them after seeing them in action) and their personal characteristics including their:

• Support of subordinates
• Intolerance for poor quality
• Lack of political orientation
• High regard for competence
• Admission of error and failure
• Standing up for values and beliefs
• Outspokenness and candor
• High ethics and integrity
• Calmness and effectiveness in crises
• Sharing of victories and a sense of fair play
• Ability to influence without authority

Whistleblowers – those who expose misconduct in the workplace – share these characteristics and also have the power to change the design of the organisation but they usually find that they are not able to rock the boat and stay in it:

Informal leaders can initiate new organisation design work by their actions or they can intervene in an already initiated project. To achieve their goals they use predominantly referent power combined with an approach and a set of characteristics which enables them to muster support without jeopardizing their position.
Being able to influence without authority is at the heart of an informal leader's ability to get what is wanted – often a tricky thing to do in difficult situations where, for example, there is no opportunity for a second chance, or there is a lot of resistance from another person or group. In these instances a systematic approach to influencing helps.

(As a sidenote: One of the most useful influencing skills courses I ever attended was run by the Impact Factory (UK). I frequently practice one of the techniques I learned on their course of acting your way into feeling and thus coming across as on the same level as the person you are interacting with. It works very well if someone is trying to use positional power as to your disadvantage).

If you would like to read more on the leadership of organization design projects look at my books: Organisation Design: the collaborative approach, or The Economist Guide to Organization Design. Both discuss this topic in more detail.

The context for organisation design typically raises a number of challenges for formal leaders i.e. those who have formal authority, control of resources, and use of organisational structure, rules and regulations. In essence they are having to simultaneously:

1. Balance the demands of the 'day job' with the demands of the project.
2. Manage a range of competing 'important' and 'urgent' priorities, tasks, and activities.
3. Help staff cope with what is inevitably seen as yet another change. (In some organisations this is called managing 'change fatigue'.)
4. Satisfy the need of the business for a fast change that also gets things right.
5. Get the timing right on leadership issues – knowing when to push and when to let go.
6. Motivate stakeholders who do not report to them but whose input is critical to the project.
7. Work effectively with other leaders both inside and outside the project.

This is a hard thing but doable if the leader

Has a clear grasp on what the vision, mission and purpose of the project is. This may sound obvious but when someone is given a leadership role in a project that is already underway, it is easy to leap into action without properly understanding the project's objectives.

Determines what work needs to be reprioritised or resources reallocated. This involves discussions within the business and may involve renegotiating personal performance objectives and balanced business scorecard measures, and taking steps to reset performance expectations. Leaders who try to take on large pieces of project work in addition to a current workload without making agreed adjustments are not doing anyone a favour.

Clarifies and establishes the boundaries of the project role. Usually it is up to the leader to get some statements from stakeholders about the edges of the role so people are not going into the organisation project with untested assumptions. Consultants and contractors coming into project leadership roles must be diligent in deducing how consistent insiders are in their view of the role and its deliverables.

Establishes levels of accountability and responsibility. These are not the same thing. Check that there are clear linkages between accountabilities and responsibilities and/or clear methods of resolving issues that may arise in trying to deliver outcomes using resources that the leader is not responsible for.

Securing resources. This includes appointing an effective deputy who is fully briefed and engaged in both the project and the day-to- day work. It also means making sure the leader has enough time in which to plan, to eliminate duplication of activities, and to communicate consistently and regularly with stakeholders (both in the project and in his/er day-to-day work)

Mobilises other the formal and informal leaders to work together This is a hard trick to pull off, particularly for people brought in specifically to turn around a project in trouble. It is a matter of achieving the right balance of getting on with those you have to work with and getting on with achieving the objectives of the project – all within a short period of time.

Builds trust quickly by being both credible and competent. Beyond leadership style people look for certain behaviours before they start to trust their leaders. Staff observe what leaders pay attention to, measure and control on a regular basis for example:

Recognises and reduces the fear people may have. Even people who trust their leaders may be fearful, for all sorts of reasons, at the thought of an impending organization design change. Fear has a stultifying and demoralising effect. People's fear of uncertainty, disruption and unknown outcomes may inhibit them from asking questions, participating in the design work or expressing a view about it.

Uses power wisely. Leaders who consistently use the same power source(s) usually fail, sometimes spectacularly, in achieving their mission

Works skilfully with 'followers' The way leaders do this depends on their style and there is no best leadership style – what will work in one situation may not work in another. Knowing this, it pays to be alert to the nuances of different situations, and to behave consistently in similar ones. Random and unpredictable behaviour only confuses and alienates people – the opposite of what is required in an organisation design process.

Is conscious of the interests and motivations of other leaders in the programme or project
Morgan (1997) in his discussion of organisations as political systems suggests that "People must collaborate in pursuit of a common task, yet are often pitted against each other in competition for limited resources, status, and career advancement". Organisation design projects by definition shake things up – coalitions change as the project progresses. In most cases there are some leaders who feel that they will either win or lose from any proposed design and will then act to preserve their own interests at the expense of organisational interests. Being able to build what John Kotter calls a 'Guiding Coalition' that balances both collaboration and competition becomes essential to project success on the basis that 'Efforts that don't have a powerful enough guiding coalition can make apparent progress for a while. But, sooner or later, the opposition gathers itself together and stops the change".

If you would like to read more on the leadership of organization design projects look at my books: Organisation Design: the collaborative approach, or The Economist Guide to Organization Design. Both discuss this topic in more detail.

In a results oriented world of measurement, analytics, and accountability there is little room for functions that are unable to prove that they add value to the bottom line. Evaluating the link between organizational performance and OD/HR practices is complex and there is no one right way to do it.

A report commissioned by the Institute of Personnel and Development in 1997, Impact of People Management Practices on Business Performance, Institute of Personnel and Development, sought to establish a link between HRM practices and the financial performance of organizations: one in a series of efforts to prove that HRM contributes positively to the 'bottom line'. The findings from this research did reveal a measurable impact of HRM on organisation performance and productivity.

More recently (2003), and building on the original research, the CIPD published Understanding the people and performance link: unlocking the black box. The model developed in this research demonstrates that people management practices in themselves do not create value. They do, however, create the building blocks of performance: ability, motivation and opportunity:

• Ability is the assumption that people want to apply for jobs, have their attributes recognised and are willing to learn new skills.
• Motivation assumes that people can be motivated to use their ability in a productive manner.
• Opportunity assumes people will perform well, engage in high-quality work and participate in wider activities such as team initiatives or problem-solving if they are given the opportunity to do so.

Another research report on the links HR practices and organizational performance comes from, Laurie McBassi, reporting on her research in the paper Employers' Perspectives on Human Capital Development and Management , submitted to the OECD in 2006 found that

A wide variety of human capital elements that are statistically associated with key organisational outcomes, but that the exact list of items that are most closely related to key outcomes in any given organisation bears little relation to the list of most important items in other organisations, even (in the case of the two manufacturing firms) within the same industry. It points to the complexity of measuring and managing human capital within organisations: there is no handy list of a small number of items that can be targeted in a quick effort to address an organisation's human capital deficiencies. Rather, a wide range of items, across multiple categories of human capital, must first be examined in order to identify those that are most closely related to the outcomes that the organisation is seeking. Only then can an organisation know where its human capital improvement efforts might most usefully be targeted.

Method of evaluating the effectiveness of OD interventions lag those of HRM. A 2009 report by Liz Finney and Carol Jefkins of Roffey Park Best Practice in OD Evaluation opens with the words:

We approached our research aware that there are many practitioners in the field of OD who believe that its systemic nature makes it hard to measure; some hold a world view that says it's inappropriate even to try.

…. In the prevailing economic climate we would argue that it is critically important. And as we emerge into a post recession world, we believe that being able and willing to demonstrate the impact of OD on the effectiveness of organizations will be imperative if the discipline is to maintain and increase its credibility.

Your view: How important is it for HR and OD to show by rigorous analytics that they add value to business performance and productivity? Does the ability to evaluate effectively have a bearing on the relationship and organisational positioning between OD and HR?

here's how to see beyond the label of culture that I talked about at the beginning of August:

The first step is to take a definition of culture that appeals to you. There are many beyond the ubiquitous 'the way we do things round here' and the two already mentioned in this article. One that works to unpack is O'Reilly and Chatman's "A system of shared values, defining what is important, and norms, defining appropriate attitudes and behaviours, that guide members' attitudes and behaviours."

The next step is to identify your label, for example you may say, 'We have (or want) a culture of innovation'.

The third step is to 'unpack' that in terms of one of the many definitions of culture. O'Reilly and Chatman's is one I like: "A system of shared values, defining what is important, and norms, defining appropriate attitudes and behaviours, that guide members' attitudes and behaviours." . The important parts of the this definition are 'shared values, defining what is important, norms, appropriate attitudes and behaviours, guiding members attitudes and behaviours. Unpack by asking a lot of questions using 'who, what, when, where, how, why'? Below is a question set for the first two items of the definition.

Shared values
What are your shared values?
How do you know these values are shared? (You need evidence for this)
Why are these shared values important (in terms of achieving your business strategy)
Who shares these values – are they shared by everyone or just some people
Where are these values shared – across the whole organisation, in pockets?
When are they shared/not shared i.e. what circumstances or contexts foster sharing values?

Defining what is important
What is important to the organisation?
How do the shared values help define this? (You need evidence here)
Who defines what is important and thus fosters the values? (Or do the values foster what's important?)
Why do the values need to define what's important? Do they do this or is there a disconnect between what's important and any values demonstrated or stated?
When does the link between defining what's important and shared values come into play – in what circumstances?
Where in the organisation is it obvious that shared values help define what is important? What can you learn from this?

From these two question sets you can see how to develop your question sets for the other three items of this definition: norms, appropriate attitudes and behaviours, guiding members' attitudes and behaviours.

Ask the questions of a random sample of the organisation (or part of it that you are interested in). You're likely to find that you get a surprising variety of answers, but several common themes.

Once you have the themes in hand the fourth step is to look at what you want to keep (and why) and what you want to shape or change (and why). As a fifth step look at what you currently have that is already shaping your culture – often it is performance measures, reward systems, job designs, work flows, and other infrastructure elements that form boundaries – much as the choice of suitcase shapes your packing strategies and the amount of stuff you can fit in: changing the infrastructure changes the possibilities.

The speed at which you can change a culture, if that's what you want to do, depends on many factors but regardless of leadership enthusiasm or edict it is not an over-night switch. John Chambers is in his seventh year of changing Cisco's culture. Lou Gerstner took a similar amount of time at IBM, and Alan Mulally at Ford is in his fourth year 'with a long way to go'. What these leaders recognised was that they could label the culture they aspired to, but that getting to it takes patience, persistence and a detailed understanding of social and infrastructure nuances, complexities and relationships.