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How to measure the strength of your culture and values
A strong, values-led company culture is what brings your purpose to life. But how can you track how strong your culture is - how well it is being manifested across your organisation?
The good news is that culture and values CAN be measured. In fact, one of the tools we use at The House is the Cultural Values Assessment (CVA) developed by the Barrett Values Centre.
Used by over 6,000 organisations, the CVA lets companies to take a frank look at their culture. Through three simple questions that take around 15 minutes to answer, the CVA provides a complete overview of your cultural strengths and weaknesses, taking into account personal motivations, employees' unique experiences and the shared understanding of the organisation’s driving purpose.
A CVA will identify problems within an organisation and figure out what is stopping employees from getting the most out of the business - what is creating entropy. Entropy has a real cost to your bottom line: whether that’s through staff turnover, wasted time or lack of morale.
The CVA will then allow meaningful conversations to unfold within your organisation - conversations surrounding priorities, purpose and strategy (including what those terms actually mean to you and your employees). At the end, you are presented with a comprehensive overview of how your values manifest themselves in your business, represented visually through diagrams, scorecards and a list of values and projections that outlines where your culture fits into your business and the lives of you and your employees.
At the House we’ve used the Cultural Values Assessment to understand what our culture means to us all individually and to ensure that we are able to live it day-by-day. It's also become an important part of how we help our clients build purpose, culture and brand. In fact, our Business Head Graham Massey, is accredited by the Barrett Values Centre to conduct CVAs.
“Through working with Barrett Values Centre I have become an ambassador, a consultant and a trainer,” Graham explains. “Anyone in the world can call me and I can help them understand how culture affects them and their business. If we believe that business is a "force for good", we have to understand where culture fits into that and how it helps to shape a company's driving purpose.”