Why don’t organisations ‘self-audit’ their personalities?
Of course, every one of us are different. We all have different pasts, different stories, different mind-sets. Organisations are the same – they all have different origins, different ‘DNA’ and different narratives. They are as culturally unique as snowflakes. Although arguably, organisations are far more complex because of the magnified complexity of the people who work in them.
Humans are on a never-ending quest to understand themselves better. From horoscopes to counsellors and from 360 feedback to MBTI profiles – we’re relentlessly pursuing the need to know more about how we tick and why we do what we do. So why don’t organisations spend as much time looking at themselves? Sure, many of them take a cursory look with a ‘business improvement’ programme, Kaizen groups or Lean processes. But these are more of a look at what we do – rather than how or why.
Nowadays, many employers and nearly every HR professional talks about the need for an effective workplace culture… But does your business ever think about ‘interviewing’ itself to understand whether the culture that currently exists is the one that serves you best? Does the organisation truly understand the character, attitude, personality and behaviours of its own existence? And if it did, would it lie down on the couch and work out how it could behave differently?
Perhaps a start is by asking the people in the business some questions – and listening to the responses. Such as:
- What three words would you use to describe the business, right now?
- What words would you *like* to use to describe the business? Are they different?
- Do you know where the organisation is going, and what struggles it’s facing to get there?
- Do you know how well you are doing? Do you know what part you play in the organisations’ success?
- Would you recommend working for your manager? If not, why not?
- Does your workplace allow you to work collaboratively and productively?
- Is the communication you receive what you really want to know? Are you listened to?
- Are you working to your full potential? If not, what gets in the way?
- Do the people around here demonstrate the behaviours that we say we really value?
- What’s the worst behaviours that people are allowed to get away with?
- If you had a magic wand at work, what would you wish for?
These questions (and many others) will allow you to diagnose what’s working well and what requires further attention. It will allow you to quickly detect the behaviours, communication preferences and ‘personality’ of the business. That way, you’re better placed to correct the attitudinal shifts that are required at their source – rather than dealing with the knock-on issues of high turnover, low engagement, poor customer advocacy and performance management issues further down the line…
Much like humans, organisations need the tools and insights that allow them to ‘self-audit’ – before they end up dealing with the resultant fallout of dysfunctional behaviour patterns.
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