Culture Conversations The data generated by the Denison survey offers an excellent opportunity to engage your employees and colleagues in some important ‘Culture Conversations’

Mission As you review your Mission results you might consider using the following questions to help facilitate the conversations:  Vision: Do you understand why we are in business? Does our vision excite/motivate you? If so why? If not, why not? Does the vision create ‘context’ for the work that you do? What would help make the vision ‘real’ for you?  Strategic Direction: Do you know what the key areas of priority are for us as a group/organization for the next 2 – 3 years? Do you believe that our strategies will have the desired impact? Do our strategies help guide your decisions? What do you need to increase your understanding of the key organizational strategies?  Goals & Objectives: Are you clear about the short- term goals that you are trying to achieve? Is progress towards those goals being measured? Do you feel some ‘ownership’ of the goals? What else do you need to achieve the goals in your area?

Mission Vision :  Do you understand why we are in business?  Does our vision excite/motivate you?  If so, why?  If not, why not?  Does the vision create ‘context’ for the work that you do?  What would help make the vision ‘real’ for you?

Mission Strategic Direction :  Do you know what the key areas of priority are for us as a group/organization for the next 2 – 3 years?  Do you believe that our strategies will have the desired impact?  Do our strategies help guide your decisions?  What do you need to increase your understanding of the key organizational strategies?

Mission Goals & Objectives :  Are you clear about the short-term goals that you are trying to achieve?  Is progress towards those goals being measured?  Do you feel some ‘ownership’ of the goals?  What else do you need to achieve the goals in your area?

Consistency As you review your Consistency results you might consider using the following questions to help facilitate the conversations:  Core Values: Are you clear about what our core values are and what they mean? What would you say is ‘valued’ most in this organization? What is ‘valued’ least? Are you able to apply the values in your day-to-day activities? What could we do to make the values more ‘real’?  Agreement: Would you say that we are all in agreement regarding our key work objectives? How effectively would you say that we resolve issues/problems that arise? What could we do better to resolve issues in a way that generates more win- win solutions?  Coordination & Integration: Do you understand how your work impacts others? Do you believe that your colleagues across the organization have common goals? Are you kept informed about work in other areas that impacts you? Do you keep other’s informed about the work that you do that might impact them? What could be done to increase the level of coordination and integration in our organization?

Consistency Core Values:  Are you clear about what our core values are and what they mean?  What would you say is ‘valued’ most in this organization?  What is ‘valued’ least?  Are you able to apply the values in your day-to-day activities?  What could we do to make the values more ‘real’?

Consistency Agreement:  Would you say that we are all in agreement regarding our key work objectives?  How effectively would you say that we resolve issues/problems that arise?  What could we do better to resolve issues in a way that generates more win-win solutions?

Consistency Coordination & Integration:  Do you understand how your work impacts others?  Do you believe that your colleagues across the organization have common goals?  Are you kept informed about work in other areas that impacts you?  Do you keep other’s informed about the work that you do that might impact them?  What could be done to increase the level of coordination and integration in our organization?

Involvement As you review your Involvement results you might consider using the following questions to help facilitate the conversations:  Empowerment: What does empowerment mean? What does it look like to you? What do you find empowering in your work? What prevents you from feeling empowered? Can we come to agreement about what empowerment looks like in our organization/group?  Teamwork: Do you feel like you are part of a team? Is our team working as effectively as it can? What if anything, gets in the way of teamwork? What should we be doing that we are not currently doing to improve our team’s effectiveness?  Capability Development: How are we doing with training? Are there specific skills that you think we lack as an organization/group? Are we building the skills and capabilities that we will need to be successful in the future? Do you believe that your skills are valued and being developed? Do you have a development plan that you believe is helping you to learn and grow in your job?

Involvement Empowerment:  What does empowerment mean?  What does it look like to you?  What do you find empowering in your work?  What prevents you from feeling empowered?  Can we come to agreement about what empowerment looks like in our organization/group?

Involvement Teamwork:  Do you feel like you are part of a team?  Is our team working as effectively as it can?  What if anything, gets in the way of teamwork?  What should we be doing that we are not currently doing to improve our team’s effectiveness?

Involvement Capability Development:  How are we doing with training?  Are there specific skills that you think we lack as an organization/group?  Are we building the skills and capabilities that we will need to be successful in the future?  Do you believe that your skills are valued and being developed?  Do you have a development plan that you believe is helping you to learn and grow in your job?

Adaptability As you review your Adaptability results you might consider using the following questions to help facilitate the conversations:  Creating Change: How receptive are we to new ideas and suggestions? Do we ever hear ourselves (or others) say ‘That’s not the way we do it around here?’ How well are changes communicated? When do changes meet the most resistance? How could we become more proactive about driving change?  Customer Focus: What do we currently do to get feedback from our customers (internal & external)? What happens to the feedback we get? Would you say that we all have a good understanding of our customer’s needs? What can we do to better serve our customer(s)?  Organizational Learning: What does risk taking at work mean to you? Can we get better at what we do without trying new things? What happens when mistakes are made around here? Do we try to learn from mistakes or is our first reaction to blame someone? What can we do to encourage more innovation?

Adaptability Creating Change:  How receptive are we to new ideas and suggestions?  Do we ever hear ourselves (or others) say ‘That’s not the way we do it around here?’  How well are changes communicated?  When do changes meet the most resistance?  How could we become more proactive about driving change?

Adaptability Customer Focus :  What do we currently do to get feedback from our customers (internal & external)?  What happens to the feedback we get?  Would you say that we all have a good understanding of our customer’s needs?  What can we do to better serve our customer(s)?

Adaptability Organizational Learning:  What does risk taking at work mean to you?  Can we get better at what we do without trying new things?  What happens when mistakes are made around here?  Do we try to learn from mistakes or is our first reaction to blame someone?  What can we do to encourage more innovation?