Part 2 of 2
Historically, organizations have focused on carefully selected value words and articulated definitions, often using multi-day retreats to craft their value language. We believe that value words and definitions are not what is important. Instead, what’s important are the behaviors the organization decides to pursue.
5. Creating interculturally validated behaviors
This approach is deeply embedded in how we at KnowledgeWorkx define organizational culture: "The sum total of the expression of the thinking, speaking and acting of its contributors."
Often, changing the value words is not necessary and could be costly because it shows up in multiple documents, brochures, websites etc.
Even if you have culturally challenging values, like ‘integrity’ or ‘do the right thing’, you can focus on articulating and interculturally validating the behaviors that allow the values to come alive!
Therefore, it is crucial to go back to the contributors of the organization values and engage the full diversity of the organization to discover how they currently give expression to the values and how they want to do that in the future. In this way you are starting to listen to the collective thinking, speaking, and acting of the organization.
Creating clarity about organizational behavior is becoming more and more important especially in a world where young consumer activism is demanding that ‘who you claim to be on the outside’ (brand externalization) must be consistent with ‘who you are on the inside’ (brand internalization).
MIT Sloan worked with the job seekers website GlassDoor and used the goldmine of employee reviews and stories to create the Culture 500 ranking. Amongst many things these employee stories revealed if the brand externalization and the brand internalization were consistent and aligned. Some of the negative company reviews typically have a backstory like the following example:
Ahmed is a passionate consumer of a certain clothing brand. He encourages his friends to buy clothing from the brand and is dreaming of working for the company. He finally gets a job at the company only to discover that working for them is utterly disappointing.
Aligning brand externalization and brand internalization in a diverse world makes it essential to interculturally validate the values and their associated behaviors. In this way both consumers/clients as well as staff are more likely to have a consistent and positive experience with the organization.
We use our Inter-Cultural Intelligence (ICI) grid to validate the intercultural appropriateness of the value-based behaviors
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The ICI grid includes both the Three Colors of Worldview as well as the 12 Dimensions of Culture of the Cultural Mapping Inventory.
We use the neutral language of the ICI grid to first answer the question: "What culturally defined behavioral preferences does each individual bring into the team or organization?"
We then use the same tools to define interculturally validated behaviors that are more easily embraced by the whole team or organization. In this way every person's thinking, speaking, and acting finds expression in the culture of the organization.
6. Benefits of Interculturally Validated Behaviors
If a culture is well defined around behaviors, and if those behaviors are interculturally validated, then it is more likely that a larger number of people will feel at home in the organization, attracting a broader and more diverse talent pool.
It will also assist with recruiting appropriate talent into the organization. Potential candidates will have a much clearer picture of what is (behaviorally) expected from them if they join the organization. This additional clarity will result in hiring candidates that are a better quality and fit for the organization.
Joining a new organization always comes with adjusting and compromising in order to find our place in the culture. As long as we maintain our identity, wholeness and our moral compass, we can ebb and flow with what the organization requires from us.
There is a powerful business case for interculturally validating a company’s value-based behaviors. According to Gallup research, employee engagement is generally low around the world and even dropped a few percentage points during the pandemic. If the culture of the organization is not interculturally validated, you will typically see lower levels of employee engagement.
The more the culture is interculturally validated, the more employees will feel at home and have room to express their culturally defined thinking, speaking, and acting.
The Process:
Defining interculturally validated behaviors around values is a delicate process and requires sensitivity and cultural agility to draw as many voices into the process as possible.
Although there isn’t an ‘off the shelf’ process, the following key ingredients work exceptionally well: