Culture Assessment Of Your Organization

Most of our people are here for the paycheck, and would quickly jump ship to make more money elsewhere.

Our people are reasonably loyal and hardworking, but most could be enticed away by a better offer.

Our people are like barnacles on a ship, totally committed to the organization and its mission.

For most of our people, every day is pretty much like the day before, and they go through their work on autopilot.

We are slightly better than the 25-60-15 Attitude Bell Curve distribution described by national studies, but fall well short of the highly-engaged workforce in organizations that consistently make “best places to work” rosters.

You frequently hear statements like “above and beyond the call” and “proceed until apprehended” to describe our people’s approach to their work.

The workplace environment is substantially dominated by toxic emotional negativity, and there are minimal consequences for chronic complaining, gossiping, and other acts of the emotional vampire.

Our organization is characterized by a reasonable level of cheerful optimism, but you would never go a whole day without hearing somebody complain about something, and would certainly never see and impromptu pep rally in a cafeteria.

Zappos got nothing on us, baby!

You might as well talk to a rock as try to get our people to take initiative for doing something they aren’t absolutely required to do

People are generally willing to take initiative along well-worn paths, but usually ask for permission before acting and are quick to defer to any semblance of authority.

Around here it really is better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Compared to competitors, our productivity is on the low end and our cost per unit is on the high end; we have a few radicals trying to push us into recycling but most of our waste ends up in the landfill.

People are reasonably careful about not wasting resources, and we are working toward LEED certification.

We all treat organizational resources as if they are our own, and care deeply about the world we are passing along to our great grandchildren.

Our people think and act like hired hands and not like partners in the enterprise because that’s how we treat them: the “mushrooms in the dark” metaphor might have been invented here.

We share financial information and other operating details in newsletters, town hall meetings, and if people ask.

Members of our leadership team have studied the Great Game of Business, and we take open book management very seriously.

This place reminds people of scorpions trapped in a bottle.

For the most part we treat each other with respect and dignity, we have cake to celebrate people’s birthdays, and last year we did a fund-raiser when one employee’s house burned down.

Think of the world’s most supportive support group. That’s us.

If you read a twitter post blasting our company, chances are it was written by an employee.

Our people generally say nice things about the organization, and will usually come to its defense in the face of criticism.

Our people are as passionate about the organization as they are about their college football team.