SALLIE LEE AND JOAN SHAFER

A cohesive culture based on values is rapidly becoming
one of the most important criteria for business success.
Many organisations have chosen core values and have
not had the expected results they imagined.
Understanding the personality and strengths of a culture––
its motivating drivers––the stories that illuminate the
values, and the directions that the employees want to
take are essential prerequisites for the effective
integration of values. The most successful methods for
extracting this information are whole-systems based.

Key Words: Personal values, organisational values, cultural beliefs, cultural transformation tool, appreciative inquiry.

Best practice exchange

Here are some of the key learning we
have to offer based on our work in
this field:

Values need to come from the people, not
from an executive member or management
committee. The vision and mission statements
of an organisation inform employees
about the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a company.
Values reflect the ‘how’––how decisions are
made and how people are expected to
behave. Values are a representation of the
beliefs of people. Therefore, in order for values
to be genuinely embraced and lived, they
must stand for what is of significance to the
population.

Measurement matters. If you can measure
it, you can manage it. Find a tool that assesses
the personality, health and evolutionary
state of a culture. This allows you to see your
starting points and the progress made over
time.

Organisational transformation begins with
personal transformation. In order for values
to be successfully integrated into a culture,
they must be rigorously modelled and supported
by the leadership. Coaching and/or
transformation work is often required to
reach this state.

It is important for employees to experience
alignment of their personal values to those of
the organisation for which they work.
Otherwise, the ‘good people leave’. This is critical if you want to attract and retain the best people.

Dialogues around the values are essential to
maintain their vitality and development.
Stories, behaviours and definitions of the values
need to be brought to the forefront on
an on-going basis. Performance compensation
needs to be values-based.

Two tools that make a difference

A variety of organisations have successfully
implemented work with values using two tools,
a values assessment and an in-depth whole system
planning process. In this article we focus on
two of these tools:

The values assessment, Cultural
Transformation Tools (CTT), measures personal
and organisational values so that they
become visible and viable.

Appreciative Inquiry (Ai) provides a whole
system dialogue and planning process that
allows all stakeholders to engage in vital conversations
that define the values and design
behaviours and systems that create the
desired culture.

Organisations as diverse as ANZ, MTV Europe,
the World Food Programme, Nortel Networks,
and Banksys have successfully combined these
methodologies to optimise the use of values in
the way they work. Some applications include:

Nortel developed whole system definitions
of values and an ethical code of conduct.

The World Food Programme defined and
directed their cultural evolution.

Wegmans used them for leadership alignment
and operations planning.

Euro DB applied them to realign their
culture.

Horizons Planning merged two cultures.

ANZ Bank incorporated them to define their
Societal Purpose.

The Case for Values

Every individual and organisation is involved in making decisions on a daily basis. The decisions individuals make reflect their personal beliefs about what they think are important. The decisions organisations make reflect the cultural beliefs about what the organisation thinks is important. In other words, the decisions people make are a reflection of their personal and organisational values. When the values of an individual are the same as or similar to the values of his or her organisation, then there is a values alignment. When the values of an individual are significantly different from the values of his or her organisation, then there is a values misalignment.

Research shows that companies that seek to align the values of the organisation with the values of employees, and vice versa, have the best long-term performance, are enjoyable to work in, and more focused on the
needs of their employees and their customers. Organisations that do not have this alignment tend to be inward-looking, bureaucratic, and stressful. They may be financially successful but find it difficult to hire and keep talented people. Companies that seek to create a values alignment, on the other hand, have few problems attracting and retaining the best people.

However, there is even considerable research showing a strong link between values alignment and organisational effectiveness and financial success. In Corporate Culture and Performance, Kotter and Heskett (1992) show that companies with strong adaptive cultures based on shared values significantly outperformed other companies. Over an eleven-year period, companies that emphasised all stakeholders – employees, customers and stockholders, and focused on leadership development, grew four times faster than companies that did not. They also found that these companies had job creation rates seven times higher, had stock prices that grew twelve time faster, and profit performance that was 750 times higher than companies that did not have
shared values and adaptive cultures. In Built to Last, Collins and Porras (1994) show that companies that consistently focused on building strong corporate cultures over a period of several decades outperformed
companies that did not by a factor of six and outperformed the general stock market by a factor of 15.

Identifying an organisation’s
values: using cultural
transformation tools [CTT]

The Cultural Transformation Tools [CTT]
assessment provides a comprehensive framework
for measuring cultures by mapping values.
This technique has been used by over 700
organisations in 26 countries and 18 languages
during the past seven years, including such companies
as Microsoft, Unilever, Ericsson, Siemens,
Ford, L’Oreal, Masterfoods, Kraft,
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and Volvo. It has also
been adopted by the International Management
Consultants, McKinsey & Company, as their
method of choice for mapping corporate cultures
and measuring progress towards achieving
culture change.

This is a whole system process with an easy
to use on-line format. The assessment incorporates
three simple questions to begin the
process:

Asking employees to select the ten values
that best described who they are: the ten values
that best represent how their culture operates;
and, the ten values that represent for them a
high-performance organisation.

Figure 1: Seven Levels of Consciousness

The results are mapped onto a framework
that has become known as the Seven Levels of
Consciousness (see Figure 1).

Richard Barrett (1998), the former Values
Co-ordinator at the World Bank, originated the
CTT assessment in conjunction with the Seven
Levels of Consciousness framework. He modified
and expanded Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
to create a model that explains the motivations
of individuals, groups and organisations. When
organisations feature values that spread across
all seven levels, they are said to have ‘full spectrum
consciousness’. By mapping the values
identified through the CTT assessment to the
Seven Levels of Consciousness model––each
value maps to a particular level of consciousness
––one is able to compare the alignment between
Personal Values, the Current Culture, and the
Desired Culture of the organisation as perceived
by various demographic groupings in the organisation.
It shows the differences in perception
between groups by positional levels, business
units, location, lengths of service, ethnicity, and
gender (see Figure 2). In addition to values
alignment, it can also measure the cultural
entropy, or degree of disorder, within an organisation
(see Figure 3).

Through this very simple and rapid format,
the organisation has an immediate way to see
which values resonate most with the organisation’s
employees and to begin a powerful
dialogue with resonance throughout the organisation.
In a way that few tools can offer, the CTT

Figure 2: Cultural Transformation Tools

Figure 3: Results of a Values Assessment from a High
Entropy Organisation

assessment allows an organisation to ‘get its
arms around’ the values of its people.

Defining and living the values:
using Appreciative Inquiry

Once the values have been identified, what
comes next? This can be a sticking point for
organisations who somehow determine the values
they want, but find no way to create true
engagement among the employees. For that
reason, we recommend incorporating the
Appreciative Inquiry methodology.

Appreciative Inquiry (Ai) provides an effective
philosophical and methodological container
for inquiring into values. It enables organisational
dialogue and knowledge sharing that can
involve the whole system.

The principles of Ai cluster around the idea
that organisations and the people in them do
not need to be fixed but rather affirmed. With Ai,
the intervention is not around analysing and
attacking problems, but around asking powerful,
positive questions around key topics that
help access an organisation’s strengths and
capacities, their ‘positive core’ for energy and
movement. Choosing to study the best in a system
and ‘what gives life’ generates energy,
participation, and fresh, well-grounded visions
of the future. This is a perfect match with
inquiring into organisational values, where identified
values can serve as the key topics for
inquiry.

Methods and principles

The Ai principles translate into a planning
methodology that is rich in storytelling,
metaphor, powerful questions, future-based
imagery, a focus on the positive, and adopting an
‘appreciative eye’. The theoretical basis rests in
social constructionism, which basically espouses
the belief that reality is formed through conversation,
that language and communication are
the centres of meaning making, and that knowledge
is generated through social interaction.
Therefore, ways of encouraging conversation
and inquiry are key.

Ai makes for simple, powerful conversations
that bring the whole into interaction. It offers
manageable ways to include many people in
planning change and movement together, in
defining or redefining a collective sense of purpose
and culture.

In addition to gathering information and
knowledge, people are connected in conversations
that can continue to spread through the
organisation. The general outcome is that the
powerful, positive, provocative nature of the
questions continues to create conversations. By
the continued processing around the “data”
generated, organisational wisdom can be tapped
in ways that move the organisation in the direction
of the combined energy of its members.

The planning cycle

In current practice, most Ai initiatives go
through a “5-Ds” planning cycle that may be
condensed into an intensive time span or
engaged in over several months.

1. Definition: Determining with the organisation
what they want to accomplish, who will
be involved, how the engagement might
unfold, and what the results generated may
require of leadership and of the whole
system.

2. Discovery: Inquire into the best of what is,
what gives life, around the chosen key affirmative
topics.

The dialogues of discovery use meaningful, positive
questions in a paired interview format as a
main tool. Grounded in the principle that
organisations move in the direction of what they
inquire into, great care is focused on the topics
chosen. Questions are designed to focus on
organisational health, promoting a move from
negotiation to dialogue and co-creation, from
problem to positive change.

The rigor of Discovery comes in the way the
dialogue is created—through the numbers of
people invited from different levels, areas, and
locations; the questions that are asked to generate
the most creative thinking; and the way the
conversations are tracked, captured, and mixed.
With this high participation process, conversations
are generated that have never occurred
before within the organisation or group.

3. Dream: Create a positive, shared image of the
desired future, of what could be.

Generally using a focusing question to bring the
outcomes of the Discovery phase to a new
focus, the Dream Phase uses examples from the
positive past to emerge images for a more valued
and vital future.

4. Design: Craft the social architecture of the
future. Determine what should be.

When new dreams emerge, organisations almost
always need to redesign some of their processes,
systems, structures, and patterns of collaboration.
This phase uses dialogue and stakeholder
expertise to clarify how the organisational vision
can show up in ongoing activities. Design statements
[provocative propositions] are crafted for
key organisational elements.

5. Destiny is an invitation to action inspired by
the previous three steps—what will be.

Destiny is where the organisation delivers on its
image of the future, using the momentum from
the process to incorporate and continue new
learning. New competencies surface to sustain
the innovations. If the principles and competencies
of Ai have been embraced, the 5-D cycle
becomes part of the way the organisation
operates.

Creating culture change and
transformation using values

Here’s a format for building a basic cultural
transformation process based on organisational
values using CTT and Ai together.

STAGE ONE: PROGRAMME DEFINITION AND
VALUES MEASUREMENT

1. Change begins with the perception by the
leader that the culture needs to be optimised
to bring the organisation to its performance
potential and taking steps to create greater
awareness of and input into the culture.

2. Engage a representative steering/core team
(usually of 20—50 people, if the organisation
is a large one) sponsored by senior management
to plan the whole engagement process
and act as champions.

3. Administer the CTT assessment to the whole
system to look at personal, current culture,
and desired culture values. This measures
and maps the health of the culture by identifying
its values.

4. Bring the Steering/Core team together to
consider the assessment results as formatted
on the Seven Levels Model—connections
between personal and desired culture values,
the levels of the values, whether the values are individual, relational, organisational, or
societal in nature, where the gaps are, surprises,
and areas of excellence.

Based on the above, have the group identify
three to five core values, values important
enough to the whole system to serve as a
basis for people to make decisions and as a
basis for day-to-day behaviours. Using these
core values as ‘topic choice’ for a whole system
dialogue, the team lays out the key
components of the Culture Transformation
programme.

5. Obtain the commitment and endorsement of
the leaders and managers to the key components
of the culture change programme.
Organisational transformation can only occur
if the leaders and managers are willing and
able to walk the new talk—to change their
own behaviours along the way to shifting the
organisation’s living of its desired values and
culture. This is more than a sign-off process
by leadership in that it is an engagement in
their own inquiry around values and culture.

STAGE TWO––IMPLEMENTING VALUES INTO
A CULTURE USING APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY
FOR A SYSTEM-WIDE INQUIRY AND
PLANNING

The process of using Appreciative Inquiry as a
planning method for defining values behaviours
and embedding them into the culture for longterm
benefit may take the form of intensive,
summit-type engagements of three to five days
with many stakeholders present or smaller
departmental or regional formats over weeks or
months.

6. Discover and Dream: Depending on the size
of the organisation, begin with small or large
group cascading interviews, conversations
and inquiry into the core values of the
desired culture. Provide the facilitation and

means to define and capture behaviours, stories,
wishes and dreams about those values.
(See typical inquiry questions below.) Use the
strength of the positive values to transform
the potentially limiting values and high
entropy.

Regarding Personal values:

What do these values make possible in
your life?

When have you felt that your actions
spoke for the best in you? What made that
possible?

How does this value/s connect you to your
current organisation?

How are your personal values made visible
in your life?

How can you make these values more
potent?

Regarding Organisational Values:

If you were conducting orientation for
new employees, what story would you tell
them that best represents the living, positive
core of this organisation?

Think of a time when this organisation was
at its best around this value/s?

Where/how do these values show up in
the organisation now?

How have these values served the organisation
in the past?

What wishes might you have to move the
organisation from current to desired
values?

7. Design for Destiny: When the values have
been defined broadly, begin to design and
redesign organisational elements: systems,
employee policies, codes of conduct, customer
relations—all in concert with the core
values and desired culture. Build space for
continual conversation around values and
culture. Keep collecting and making available
stories about how the values are living in the culture as part of its mission and vision, as
part of its daily operations.
This stage will take time and continued leadership
support for the importance of a
values-based organisation.

STAGE THREE—HOW FAR HAVE WE COME?

In reaching the Destiny phase of the change
process, there is always the need to adapt,
adjust, integrate new learning and, if possible,
check to see how far you have come. At this
point, a year or more into the process, an organisation
can use the Cultural Transformation
Tools survey again to measure the culture. We
have found that stakeholders are genuinely
engaged and committed to comparing results
from one year to another. Once again, the outcomes
provide the impetus for rich
conversations along the cultural transformation
journey, and conversations are where change
and growth take place.

8. Measure the outcomes of the cultural transformation
programme. Re-administer the CTT
assessment throughout the organisation.

Measure the new Current Culture.

Measure the new Desired Culture.

Measure the change in entropy.

9. Compare the new results with those of the
original assessment. Develop new culture
initiatives to achieve new goals and objectives.
Fold the new into the cultural mix and
continue stirring.

Conclusion

Whatever process you choose to work with, the
most important factor is that it is a whole systems
methodology that focuses on topics of meaning. Employees, and in fact, all stakeholders
are far more interested in the results if they
know their personal input is contained in it.
Gathering everyone’s input on the values creates
a buy-in that cannot be replicated by any
smaller representative grouping of a system.
This approach ensures greater understanding of
the dynamics of a culture as well as the buy-in of
the values integration work. Being a values-driven
organisation is rigorous and continuous work
whose pay-off includes higher productivity and
profitability, best employee attraction and retention,
pride, and increased creativity and
resilience. Focusing on the strengths of a collective
raises the energy and engagement of the
stakeholders.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

Anderson, H., Cooperrider, D., Gergen, K., Gergen,
M., McNamee, S. & Whitney, D. (2001) The
Appreciative Organisation. Taos Institute.

Barrett, R. (1998) Liberating the Corporate Soul,
Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Block, P. (2003) The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on
What Matters. San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.

Collins, J. C. & Porras, J. I. (1994) Built to Last,
Successful Habits of Visionary Companies New
York: HarperCollins.

Cooperrider, D. and Whitney, D. (2000) “A Positive
Revolution in Change,” in Appreciative Inquiry:
Rethinking Human Organisation toward a
Positive Theory of Change. Stipes Publishing.

Gergen, K. (1995) Realities and Relationships.
Boston, Harvard University Press.

Kotter, J. P. &. Heskett, J. L. (1992) Corporate Culture
and Performance, New York: The Free Press.

McNamee, S. (1998) “Re-Inscribing Organisational
Wisdom and Courage: The Relationally Engaged
Organisation,” in Srivastva, S. & Cooperrider,,
D.L. [eds.], Organisational Wisdom and
Executive Courage. New Lexington Press.

Watkins, J. & Mohr, B. (2001) Appreciative Inquiry:
Change at the Speed of Imagination. Jossey-
Bass/Pfeiffer.

Whitney, D. & Trosten-Bloom, A. (2003) The Power of
Appreciative Inquiry: A Practical Guide to
Positive Change, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.

For more information on Cultural Transformation
Tools, go to www.corptools.com.
For more information on Appreciative Inquiry, go to

http://ai.cwru.edu.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Joan Shafer is the Senior Partner at Richard
Barrett & Associates; responsible for developing
and presenting cultural transformation programs,
and the development of new values
assessment tools. She is also responsible for the
development and implementation of the
Cultural Transformation Tools consultant’s training
programs. Joan’s areas of expertise include
implementing personal and cultural transformation,
leadership coaching, training, and the
facilitation of workshops in the areas of group
cohesion, personal transformation and values
alignment.

Sallie Lee is an organisational design consultant
and principal of Shared Sun Studio. She
has applied and taught Ai in corporate, governmental,
and social sector settings, using the
curriculum she developed for effectively and
quickly enabling participants to use Ai with their
own organisations and clients. A charter coowner
of Ai Consulting, she first trained with
David Cooperrider, Ai’s originator, in Case
Western Reserve University’s year-long Global
Excellence in Management (GEM) program,
gaining certification in Global Change and Social
Innovation. Since then, she has continued her
study of Ai, training with Jane Watkins, Bernard
Mohr, Jim Lord, Ron Fry, and other Ai innovators.
Sallie has developed two workshops on Ai
and Values, being taught world-wide, in partnership
with Richard Barrett and Associates
combining their well-known cultural transformation
values assessment with Ai applications.