Questions to ask in your culture assessment

Do you know what questions to ask when you conduct a culture assessment? There are a number of organizational culture assessment questions that will reveal your company’s Core Culture. To use culture to drive change, you must first define it. These questions will uncover views on those principles and values that are core to the culture. This assessment is an initial first step in defining your culture and driving change.

Core Culture

To sum up, your goal is to, firstly, ask these questions to company founders, leaders and key influencers. Then, you will use the results of the analyzed qualitative data to construct a customized employee survey. Next, you will administer the closed-ended survey to all employees to solicit their views. As you see, everyone is included in the process of defining the Core Culture.

This process is used because there is no generic survey that will capture the essence of your culture. Every organization is unique. The aim of the organizational culture assessment is to define the company’s distinction and strategic focus. 

Now, to start the process, use these and other questions to uncover how your leaders describe the principles and values of your company.

Firstly, ask introductory questions

Ask questions that allow the person to describe the organization and what is special about it. For example, you could ask:

• What words would you use to describe this organization? Give examples of each.
• What are you most proud of at this organization?
• What do you love about this organization? 

Secondly, ask questions to reveal the Purpose and Philosophy

These questions will reveal the identity of your organization–the Purpose and Philosophy. In other words, they are the most stable part of your culture.

Ask Purpose questions

Ask Philosophy questions

Examples of organizational culture assessment questions to uncover the Philosophy include:

• What special attribute does the founder/leader possess that has influenced the character of the organization?
• Describe the ideals that drove the founding of this organization.
• What value(s) is (are) fundamental and distinctive to this organization since its founding? Give examples.
• Describe the personality or character of the founder of this organization.
• What makes this company feel different from its competitors?
• What would only happen at this organization? Describe a situation that illustrates this.
• What is something about this organization that often surprises a visitor?
• Above all, what is central to who we are as an organization that should never change?

The final set of organizational culture assessment questions reveals the Priorities

Priorities are the additional values to achieve your goals and build an engaged workforce. These values may, and often do, change over time.

Ask questions to highlight what the organization should focus on and pay attention to in order to thrive.

Use these recommendations to guide your culture assessment

When conducting an organizational culture assessment, follow these guidelines:

• Include all employees in the process to uncover and define the Core Culture. To own it, one must participate in the process. Above all, ask the above questions in interviews or through open-ended surveys. After that, compile a customized survey for all employees to complete. The leadership team must get employee views before deciding the Core Culture.
• Use the questions when you conduct interviews. In addition, use them in open-ended surveys or for culture focus groups.
• During interviews and focus groups, be sure to ask follow-up questions. This will enrich the information you collect. Above all, encourage employees to share examples and stories.
• Although the questions reveal attributes of the Core Culture, you will find that the responses are not always clear-cut. To clarify, often a person’s response does not directly answer the question. Be open to what the information you collect actually reveals. Most importantly, review the explanation of the Five Ps to ensure you understand these Core Culture concepts.
• Some of the organizational culture assessment questions sound repetitive. Often, using a slightly different word or phrase in a question will yield either confirming or new, insightful responses.
• To sum up, when conducting an assessment to determine the organization’s identity, your objective is to find those few values that capture its essence. 

Use the Building a Culture of Distinction program for your assessment and change process

Use Building a Culture of Distinction for a detailed explanation of the culture assessment process. To clarify, the Facilitator Guide is for those leading the process. This is a do-it-yourself guide.

The Participant Guide is for employees participating in the process.

Contact Sheila to guide you in the culture assessment process

Contact Sheila to learn more about the questions to ask in your culture assessment.

Sheila has conducted culture assessments with a variety of organizations–small and large. Culture assessments are most successful when an outside consultant collects insider perspectives. It’s hard to see yourself accurately.

Also, be aware that you will conduct much of the assessment virtually over a two to three month period. Firstly, you can conduct the interviews in-person or virtually. Secondly, employees complete an online survey. Finally, you can hold the facilitated session with the leadership team in-person or virtually.

Above all, let Sheila guide you in conducting an assessment. To clarify, her management consulting firm Workplace Culture Institute is based in Atlanta, serving clients globally. Certainly, use the Contact Form to email Sheila.