What is a culture assessment?

A culture assessment is when leadership at a company reviews their internal and external culture to see how it matches their ideals. As company leaders often determine what kind of culture they hope to foster, like collaborative or autonomous, this assessment helps them to align more with their primary mission. Culture assessments often include a series of questions that you can ask employees to evaluate the reality of the company’s environment along with research to compare them against the company’s mission and values.When performing an assessment, there are several types of cultures the company your work for might have:

• Innovative: Innovative cultures are flexible and adapt to change. They might take certain risks and value new ideas over hierarchies or role titles.
• Aggressive: Aggressive cultures focus on outperforming their competition wherever possible. They might take shortcuts or avoid social or cultural responsibilities to reach their own goals.
• Results-driven: Results-driven organizations are similar to aggressive cultures, though they focus more on actions and their results. They commonly discuss sales figures and achievements and often reward top performers.
• Stable: Stable cultures often have rigid rules and processes and are more focused on stability than adapting to change. Companies with this culture depend on predictable behaviors and outcomes to function best.
• Employee-focused: Employee-focused organizations often have mentorship opportunities, open communication and fairness policies to ensure employees are their focus. Management often prioritizes employee comfort and happiness over other goals.

What are the quadrants of a culture assessment?

When assessing culture, there are four main areas to consider: collaboration, creation, control and compete. When companies survey employees, they find answers that lean more in one of these four areas, determining what their culture is really like. These are part of the Competing Values Framework (CVF) that can tell what an organization might value most. Here are some details about each of the four quadrants:

Collaborate

The collaborate quadrant means a company values communication, loyalty and working together with others in the company to succeed. These companies often focus on long-term development and are highly flexible with internal processes and needs. If the company you work for is in this category, it may be likely that customers can trust it more easily, as these values can become apparent outside of the organization.

Create

Companies that are more in the create quadrant focus on innovation and creativity within the workplace. They often create new products in the market and value risks that individuals take. This means they’re flexible, particularly with external requirements, and can adapt and change easily as they develop as a company. These can be more entrepreneurial businesses, like startups, and usually attract employees by establishing a unique vision that others can share.