The culture you wrote down, and the one you actually have
Define your purpose, principles and behaviours as something a person can hold a decision against. Then find out, every month, whether the company is living them.
Why values stop meaning anything
Almost every company has written its values down. Very few can tell you whether the company is practising them, and fewer still would find out before it costs them someone good.
The words are too safe to be violated
Integrity. Excellence. Teamwork. Nobody could act against them, which means nobody can act on them either. A value that cannot be broken is not a value, it is a truism.
The real rules are unwritten
The team learns what actually gets rewarded within a few months, and it is rarely what the wall says. Nobody writes those rules down; everybody follows them.
You read the culture once a year, too late
An annual engagement survey describes a quarter that closed before the report arrived. By the time it names a problem, the people who felt it first have already gone.
How DNA works in Green Organization
Write it as something testable
Define purpose, principles, behaviours and ambitions as separate, specific statements — the kind a manager can hold a hard decision against on a Tuesday.
Look at it through a lens
Read the same DNA through established frameworks when that helps a conversation, without rewriting the underlying definition to fit a model.
Measure what is actually practised
A short monthly pulse goes out anonymously. Responses cannot be traced back to a person by design, and no result is reported until enough people have answered.
See the gap, and version the answer
Compare the culture you stated with the one people report living. Every change to your DNA is a snapshot you can diff, so you can see what you believed last year.
What you get
Purpose, principles, behaviours and ambitions
Four distinct kinds of statement rather than one undifferentiated values list, so each one can be used for the decision it is actually good for.
Anonymous monthly pulse
Responses are unlinkable from the individual at the database level, and nothing is reported for a group until at least five people have answered.
Stated versus lived
The gap view puts the culture you declared next to the one the pulse reports, which is the only version of this question worth asking.
Snapshots and a shareable view
Ratify a version, diff it against the last one, and publish a read-only view for the people outside the company who ask what you stand for.
Questions
- What is organizational DNA?
- It is the set of statements that define why the company exists, what it will and will not do, and how people are expected to behave. Values are one part of it. The rest is the ambitions and principles that make a value specific enough to act on.
- Is the pulse survey really anonymous?
- Yes, and not as a policy promise. A response is stored so that it cannot be linked back to the person who gave it, and results for any group stay hidden until at least five people have answered, so a small team cannot be identified by process of elimination.
- How is this different from an engagement survey tool?
- An engagement tool measures sentiment and hands you a score. This measures the distance between the culture you wrote down and the one people report, monthly, against your own definitions — and keeps both in the same place as your structure, strategy and goals.
Find out what your company actually believes
Start with the plan that fits your size, or read how the pieces of Green Organization work together.