Translating "Soft" Changes into "Hard" Dollars: Financial Returns from Organisational Culture Improvement

Culture change initiatives can lead to real financial returns. This research paper, first presented at the ASTD Expo in Orlando, Florida in June 2005, summarises the results of a series of studies that demonstrate the strong relationship between constructive organisational cultures and financial performance.

Eric J Sanders, MBA and Robert A Cooke, PhD

Financial Returns from Organisational Culture Improvement

We discuss five different studies that validate and support the importance of the work carried out by training and development practitioners to improve organisational culture. The studies referenced use quantitative data to measure both organisational culture, via the Organisational Culture Inventory® (OCI)(Cooke and Lafferty, 1987), and financial performance (based on corporate financial reports), and draw strong correlations between the two. The OCI is a well-respected survey that has been completed by over two million individuals over the past twenty years and is statistically reliable and valid (Cooke and Szumal, 1993).

Three cross-sectional studies linking organisational culture and financial performance are of key interest to us here. The first focuses on organisations in a variety of industries and demonstrates a positive correlation between the strength of constructivecultural norms and earnings/sales ratios. The second is a study by Martin Klein (1992) that focuses on retail stores within a single chain and shows stronger sales growth at the stores with constructive cultures than at sister stores with less constructive cultures. The third is a large study of newspaperswhich shows many bottom-line measures are positively related to the strength of constructive norms. (Human Synergistics/Centre for Applied Research, Inc. and The Readership Institute, 2001).

Financial Returns from Organisational Culture Improvement

Possibly the best-known longitudinal study that links financial performance to adaptive (similar to constructive) cultures is the classic work by Kotter and Heskettin 1992. They show that companies with adaptive cultures performed significantly better than those with non-adaptive, or what we would refer to as defensive, cultures over an 11-year period along various financial indicators. Their research design, however, is retrospective and is not intended to trace the impact of culture change interventions.

The two longitudinal case studies presented in this article complement Kotter and Heskett's research by demonstrating that investments in cultural change programs and positive changes in cultural norms are followed by significant improvements in financial performance. By suggesting that culture leads to performance, the case studies also complement the cross-sectional studies (which show significant correlations between culture and performance but do not demonstrate causality).

These research results should be of value to training and development practitioners when recommending cultural change initiatives to CEO’s and other high-level executives of client organisations. The quantitative results should enable them to make a stronger case for the return the organisation will realise from an investment in improving organisational culture.

Culture in relation to Earning/Sales Ratios and Volatility

The first study was made possible by Tower-Perrins, which provided Human Synergistics with data on earnings/sales ratios for publicly traded corporations over a three-year period. We had carried out OCI projects with many of these organisations and were able to create a data set of 69 companies that included both the financial and culture data. A measure of average performance across the three years was developed for each firm. Additionally, the standard deviation across the three years was calculated to serve as a proxy for volatility in performance (Cooke, 2004).

Correlations were carried out to see if the cultural styles were related to performance. As expected, the strength of Constructive norms across organisations was significantly related to earnings/sales ratios (r = .22, p < .05). No relationships between either the Passive/Defensive or Aggressive/Defensive styles were observed. However, the Aggressive/Defensive styles were significantly related to volatility (r = .34; p < .01).

These results are consistent with those of previous studies showing a positive relationship between constructive cultures and other, non-financial, measures of performance. For example, constructive cultural norms have been shown to be related to member commitment and motivation, teamwork and co-operation, and organisational-level indicators such as adaptability and client satisfaction. These positive outcomes are likely to translate into better financial performance.

Additionally, the results around volatility are consistent with previous findings showing that defensive cultures can lead to internal competition, power struggles, and an undue emphasis on short-term performance. While informative, the power of this study (and the potential magnitude of the correlations) is limited by the fact that companies from many different industries were included. The next two studies we review focus on specific companies and industries.

Constructive Culture and Sales Growth in Retail Men's Apparel Stores

Martin Klein, now Director of the Courage Institute, studied the corporate culture and performance of a group of men's apparel stores (1992). Klein divided the 44 stores in his sample into categories, including:

§ High Growth: stores with the largest sales increases compared to the previous years and also the largest sales volume (N = 11)

§ No Growth: stores with the largest sales decreases and smallest total sales volume (N = 12)

Having spent 20 years working in retail (Sanders) and studying various types of stores (Cooke), we can verify that retail chains place a strong emphasis on sales growth. Store managers are promoted or fired, and stores are maintained and expanded or closed, depending upon whether they can beat last year's numbers. Those who could show consistent growth along with higher sales volume, such as those in Klein's High Growth sub-sample, would certainly be considered "the cream of the crop" by the senior management of any retail chain.

The staff of each store completed the OCI, their responses were aggregated to the store level, and ANOVA (analysis of variance) tests were run. Klein found, as predicted, that the constructive cultural styles were significantly stronger in the High Growth stores than in the No Growth stores.

We took Klein's results a step further and mapped them onto an OCI circumplex, as shown above. This shows the High Growth stores are higher on every constructive cultural style and lower on most of the defensive cultural styles. Teams in the constructive stores focused on achieving goals instead of winning competitions, on helping each other instead of fighting each other, and on working as a team instead of as a group of individuals that happen to work in the same place. This is a culture for performance, and the results confirm that it is successful.

Readership Institute Culture Results

In 2001, the Readership Institute at North-western University conducted The Impact Study. This was a multi-faceted study designed to help newspapers grow sustainable readership through research findings that could be put into action and yield measurable results in US markets. Part of that research included assessing the organisational culture at 90 newspapers via the OCI.

The results showed that newspapers had predominantly defensive cultures, with 73 of the 90 being defensive. In these defensive cultures, "employees lose sight of the overall goal, get lost in details, and make little effort to co-ordinate with others. Newspaper employees also are confrontational, which causes unproductive conflict, results in safe but ineffectual decisions, and creates the inability to solve problems in a group" (Readership Institute, 2001).

However, a separate survey carried out to identify the "ideal culture" for newspapers clearly suggested that people in the industry view a constructive culture as more appropriate. Additionally, managers tended to have a more constructive view of the current culture than others. This suggests that the defensive cultures of the newspapers in the sample can be changed.

Why they should change is readily apparent from the findings of the study showing the positive effects of Constructive cultures. Using correlation analysis, we found significant positive relationships between constructive behaviours (and negative relationships between defensive behaviours) and many factors that directly affect the bottom line of newspaper companies.

+++ Positive correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.001
++ Positive correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.01
+ Positive correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.05
- Negative correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.05
- - Negative correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.01
- - - Negative correlation, statistically significant at p < 0.001

Organisational n = 79. One-tailed correlations with list-wise deletion of missing cases. Coefficients differ slightly with case-wise deletion. ¹ Culture factor scores based on Organizational Culture Inventory (Human Synergistics). ² Based on Organizational Effectiveness Inventory (Human Synergistics). ³ Based on organisational records collected by The Readership Institute (Northwestern University). ⁴ Based on surveys of newspaper readers carried out by The Readership Institute. ⁵ Regression residual of profit not explained by revenue and circulation strata. ⁶ Stress and Turnover are negative outcomes and are expected to be negatively related to Constructive cultural norms. Analysis by Robert A. Cooke, PhD.

These significant behaviours include satisfaction, stress, turnover, co-operation and teamwork, intra-unit co-operation, product/service quality, customer satisfaction, and reader behaviour. The strength of constructive behaviours was also directly related to profit, controlling the size of the newspaper. Organisational culture is both directly and indirectly related to the bottom line at newspapers.

Culture Change at The Ohio State University Medical Centre

In 2001, Dr. Fred Sanfilippo, the Dean of The Ohio State University Medical Center, determined that one of the key factors they needed to change to improve the centre was the organisation's culture. They administered the OCI and found that their predominant cultural styles were defensive, especially Avoidance and Oppositional. This suggested that the behaviours typically found included lack of involvement and poor teamwork, waiting for others to act first, and blaming others if a problem occurred. Prevailing norms also included opposition to new ideas, refusal to accept criticism, and a focus on process rather than outcomes. However, the Dean and his leadership team also identified a strong desire among the staff to change to a more participative, constructive and achievement-oriented culture.

The medical centre has a three-part mission: research, education and patient care. To succeed in this mission it also has a key goal to deal with the financial challenges facing an academic medical centre today. The senior leadership realised the key to succeeding in their mission was first and foremost investment in their people. They started with high-level leadership training for executives, leadership training for faculty and staff, and management training for all who wanted to improve their skills. The culture change program also included 360-degree feedback; culture retreats and an organisation-wide focus on becoming a more collegial, achievement-oriented and self-actualising institution.

Improvements in the mission areas of research, education and patient care have been equally impressive. With respect to research, The Ohio State University Medical Centre has doubled research funding, created a research faculty track and three new high-technology medicine departments, and built the largest research centre at the university ever without any state or university capital funding. In education, they increased the number of MD applicants by 28% (well above the national average), and MD-PhD applicants by 129%, increased merit scholarships to 34 from just 4 two years ago, and increased continuing medical education by 193% in just two years.

In patient care or clinical medicine, 80% of their physicians are rated as among the best doctors in the geographical area, they have the most "wired" hospitals for the fifth consecutive year and, by the US News and World Report's honour roll system, they are now in the top quartile of academic medical centres in the country. Over just four years, the results have been impressive. The culture has moved from being primarily Passive/Defensive - emphasising Avoidance - to an Aggressive/Defensive one - high in Competitive norms - with strong movement toward becoming a more constructive culture. This means that the dominant norms now are toward winning and being noticed, with a strong emphasis on setting and achieving goals and on helping and encouraging others.

The goal of dealing with the financial issues facing an academic medical centre facilitates all of their mission areas, and The Ohio State University Medical Center has done phenomenally well in that regard. In 2000, before the culture change program started, funding per square foot was about $75. That has risen every year and is now over $100 per square foot. More impressive still, the centre's FY 2000 budget was about $600 million accompanied by a deficit of over $40 million. In just four years, they have grown to an FY 2004 budget of over $900 million with a $7 million surplus. These are impressive results that show that investment in culture change pays a huge return over time.

Lion Nathan's Culture Change Success

Lion Nathan is the largest brewer in New Zealand and the second largest in Australia. As part of their corporate goal "to make our world a more sociable place" (Lion Nathan 2004 Annual Report), they have worked to develop a great business by improving on many fronts, not the least of which is corporate culture.

In 1996, Lion Nathan CEO Gordon Cairns and HR Director Bob Barbour developed a plan to assess and improve their organisational culture. They started at the top with Cairns using a 360-degree assessment - the Life Styles Inventory (LSI)- to create a leadership development plan that included coaching by Barbour on a regular basis (Barbour, 2003). The development plan now includes leaders at all levels of the organisation. They use the LSI about every 18 months, talent reviews every six months in a "Competency X Results" model, and other tools to continually develop internal talent (Cairns, 2002).

Lion Nathan culture profiles versus KPIs, 1996 - 2004
Research & Development by Robert A Cooke, Ph D
and J Clayton Lafferty, Ph D. © Human Synergistics International

Lion Nathan also administered the Organisational Culture Inventory in 1996 and has continued to do so every two years since as shown above. At the time of the first assessment, the organisational culture at Lion Nathan was very Aggressive/Defensive. The strongest cultural styles were Competitive, Power, Oppositional and Avoidance. The results suggested that members felt they had to win at all costs. People competed against each other internally, sometimes to the detriment of the organisation. Being in control was important, and if something went wrong, one criticised it openly and passed the blame for problems on to someone else. Cairns and his team recognised that this was not a healthy environment to work in, nor one that would lead to long-term business success.

Lion Nathan's Turn-around

The turnaround in the culture at Lion Nathan has been remarkable. The most recent OCI results show that over the past eight years, the culture of the organisation has become very constructive. This transformation is discussed in the 2004 Annual Report, which states that Lion Nathan offers its employees three things:

1. The chance to be the best that they can be.

2. The ability to make a real difference.

3. The opportunity to have a great time doing it.

Given this strong constructive environment, Lion Nathan has been rated one of the top ten employers in Australia. Lion Nathan has also gained strong financial returns on the investment made to redirect culture, as indicated by three key financial measures in the figure above:

1. Revenue.

2. Earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA).

3. Net profit after taxes (NPAT, before significant or abnormal items).

First, note these numbers declined in the first two years after the culture change initiative began. Culture change can create uncertainty with an organisation. However, the pain has been well worth it. Since 1998, Lion Nathan has reported increases in each of these key financial measures every year, as shown by the annual rate of change. In addition, the common stock price has risen every year since 1999, more than doubling from A$3.58 to A$7.58 in 2004 (a 12.8% annual increase). Clearly culture change has been good for the shareholders of Lion Nathan.

Summary and Conclusions

The five studies reviewed in this paper convincingly show the return on investment that organisations can achieve with culture change initiatives. The cross-cultural studies show a strong correlation between constructive cultures and business success. Retail stores with more constructive cultures showed stronger growth in revenue and indeed higher revenue than their defensive-culture sister stores. Newspapers with constructive cultures had higher satisfaction, more co-operation and teamwork, lower stress, better readership, and higher profit.

It is important to note, however, that link between culture and profit was not direct. Detailed analysis of the retail store data indicated that constructive cultures translated into co-operation and teamwork, which promoted high quality service and, in turn, repeat business and better sales. Similarly, the more constructive and successful newspapers were driven by a philosophy oriented toward serving their readers, which made out-performed their defensive counterparts.

In the longitudinal studies, The Ohio State University Medical Centre showed that over four years they moved from a defensive, avoidant culture to a competitive and more constructive culture, through leadership development and an organisation-wide emphasis on culture change. They also improved their research, education and patient-care performance, raised their budget by 50% and moved from a $40 million deficit to a $7 million surplus. Finally, Lion Nathan showed that a concerted culture change program, led and supported by senior management, can completely change an organisation's culture. The company's culture moved from Defensive to Constructive, achievement and team-oriented, and the financial results show it, especially in the past six years.

Key factors in both Lion Nathan and the medical centre were strong missions and committed leadership. These factors allow the translation of "soft" organisational culture change initiatives into "hard" dollars for the organisations bold enough to implement them.

Eric J. Sanders has master's degrees in economics and business administration, twenty years experience in retail sales and management, taught economics at two universities and trained over 1000 K-12 economics teachers in the US and Ukraine. He has lived in Spain and Canada, and worked with the cultures of many organisations.

Dr. Robert A. Cooke is Director of Human Synergistics and is Associate Professor of Management Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has consulted for both private and public organisations, has developed many organisational development assessments and experiential exercises and is the author of over 75 articles, chapters, and technical reports.

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• The Circumplex

  Human Synergistics’ distinctive circumplex is a quantitative human behaviour measure. The conceptual model arranges variables in a circular manner based on their similarity.

  The circumplex represents a synthesis of a collection of seminal contributions on human thinking and behaviour, specifically those that provide insight to the relationship between task and interpersonal orientations and the impact of constructive versus defensive need fulfilment as drivers (causes) of human behaviour. The circumplex brings together twelve styles of thinking and behaving and clusters these into three general orientations:

  1. Constructive (blue) style

  2. Passive/Defensive (green) style

  3. Aggressive/Defensive (red) style

  The Importance of Measurement
  

  Unless critical aspects of human behaviour can be defined and described precisely, the odds are they can’t be changed. In this respect, Human Synergistics offers impressive and very real advantages.

  By measuring human behaviour – be it at the individual, teamor organisationallevel - it becomes tangible, it becomes something that can be described, and made specific. Measurement allows the abstract to become concrete. It makes the obscure specific.

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  Organisational Development

  The distinguishing feature of leading organisations is their culture, the norms and expectations that encourage performance oriented behaviour rather than security and mediocrity.

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  Organisational Culture Inventory

  Identify your organisation's culture. Learn how to build a high performing culture that maximises the value of human talent and organisational structures, systems and technologies.

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  1. Moving from Measurement to Action: View the Organisational Development Model

  Defining a Preferred Culture

  A special version of the OCI is used to create a vision of the ideal or preferred culture for the organisation. Using this, leaders can define the culture that would best help their organisation achieve its vision and support long term effectiveness.

  This preferred culture profile then becomes the standard against which the actual organisational culture is then compared, resulting in a gap analysis that focuses improvement efforts where they can make the most difference.

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  Outcomes of Culture

  When measuring actual operating culture, the OCI also measures certain key outcomes - individual member satisfaction, commitment, role clarity, role conflict and perceptions of the organisation's service quality.

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  Organisational Effectiveness Inventory

  Designed to complement the Organisational Culture Inventory, the Organisational Effectiveness Inventory (OEI) provides additional rigour into the measurement of organisational factors, specifically:

  • the structures, systems, technologies and skills/qualities of those in leadership positions that are the causal factors of culture, and
  • additional outcomes at the individual, group and organisational levels.

  This comprehensive process assesses virtually all internal factors and conditions that are likely to impact on your organisation's performance.

  Together the OCI and the OEI provide a complete picture of the case for change and the levers for change.

  1. Moving from Measurement to Action: View the Organisational Development Model

  With the OCI measuring preferred and actual operating culture, and the OEI measuring organisational practices and outcomes, clear strategies emerge for managing improvement.

  The combined survey can be undertaken with two different research designs:

  • Staff complete both inventories. This allows for the strongest statistical correlations between practices, culture and outcomes.
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  How to commence a Life Styles Inventory (LSI)

  General Notes
  1. The LSI process measures individual cognitive behaviour as it relates to work and life in general
  2. The LSI process is constructed in such a way as to ensure total confidentially and anonymity; this is a critical component of the process
  3. Respondents should be selected with their ability to supply honest and objective perceptions of your behaviour
  Steps
  1. You will need to approach and secure 5 people who are willing to act as respondents and invest around 20 minutes completing an online survey.

  · The preferred makeup of respondents is 1 upline manager, 2 peers and 2 direct reports

  · In small organisations choose people who work with you or are close associates and can give good feedback on your behaviour and approach toward life and business.

  2. It is a good idea to speak with your potential respondents privately and if they agree then send an email message to them that outlines your requirements of them. Suggested text attached below:
  3. Ideally notify me once you have finalised your list of respondents, I will then advise Human Synergistics to commence the project
  4. Once your project becomes live, you will be emailed 6 links to a website, you will have one for your feedback on self (LSI-1) and five to forward to your chosen respondents (LSI-2). Please keep a note of what link was sent to what person, just in case you need to resent advice to that person
  5. You and your five respondents complete the on-line survey (around 20 minutes) then the report.
  6. The LSI report is generated; either the “generic” or a “personalised” report

  What happens after

  7. De-brief (2 sessions of around 2 hours each) with Chris Woodhouse commence and action learning projects identified from the diagnostic information commence.
  8. Progress on projects monitored, coaching as required
  9. Re-measurement in 12-18 months to determine progress

  See next page for suggested email to respondent’s text……

  Suggested text for email to potential respondents: Feel free to personalise as required

  Dear XXX
  
  
  I am about to participate in a cognitive behaviour diagnostic process that has a debrief and action learning self-development process integrated. I must complete a psychometric instrument that relates to my perceptions of self and my behaviours. Further to this I require a minimum of 5 associates to complete a very similar instrument.
  
  My request is whether or not you are willing to spend around 20 minutes of your time in the next week or so completing this instrument on-line. All responses are entirely confidential as they are grouped together to ensure anonymity so please be honest with your responses.
  
  I am very happy to share my thoughts with you about the process (and results) if you wish. Apparently this process and the thinking and research behind it can also be successfully applied to groups, leadership impact on teams, measurement of actual and preferred organisational culture and the causal reasons and outcomes that specific organisation's culture creates.
  
  If you are willing to participate please let me know asap. If yes, in a day or two you will receive a email forwarded by me that will allow you to access a website where the survey will be waiting for you to be completed. That will be all I ask of you to do, thereafter it is all up to me and the facilitator to work through the results.
  
  Thanks in anticipation

  
  YYYYY