“Motivated employees who aspire to grow, who are engaged and aligned with the needs of the organisation, its stakeholders, and its clients are more productive and produce better results.”
This article is the first in a four-part series of articles on creating a high-performance culture. Throughout the series, we look at why culture matters, why most culture change initiatives fail, and we introduce MotivationMetrics, our programme designed to create a sustainable high-performance culture based on a happier, more motivated workforce.
"As much as 40% of performance can be attributed to the culture of an organisation.”
As companies bring employees back to the office, we are seeing a renewed focus on organisational culture. Post-Covid office environments with new operating practices and more flexible hybrid work patterns have left managers wondering how the culture of their organisation may be affected and how they can shape organisational behaviour to adapt to the new challenges.
There is extensive psychological research showing that companies with a culture of motivated employees aspiring to grow and engaged and aligned with the needs of the organisation, its stakeholders, and its clients are more productive and produce better results (The Relationship Between Engagement at Work and Organizational Outcomes, Harter et al. 2020). Studies have estimated that as much as 40% of performance can be attributed to the culture of an organisation. These observations are backed by findings in neuroscientific research which have shown how behavioural triggers such as providing constructive feedback, giving recognition, and supporting employee development can increase the presence of neurotransmitters connected to satisfaction and happiness (The Neuroscience of Trust, Management Behaviors that Foster Employee Engagement. Paul Zak, Harvard Business Review, February 2017). In turn, satisfaction and happiness are linked to improved performance.
“You don’t measure culture. You map and understand the behaviours that make up the culture.”
If culture is such an important driver of performance, why do so many culture change initiatives fail to deliver? There are two main reasons. The first is they do not properly identify what they are trying to change. They take big airy themes such as engagement and satisfaction but do not clearly define them. This approach is beset by a fundamental problem, how do you measure such concepts? The simple answer is - you don’t. You can’t measure something intangible like culture or engagement by asking people how they feel; they will only tell you what they think you want to hear.
Second, most initiatives are generic and do not recognise individuality at the organisational or the individual level. Each culture is different and every organisation has its own set of needs which must shape its culture and the behavioural norms that constitute it. The behavioural norms that make up a succesful research organisation will likely be very different to those of a high volume consumer sales business.
Moreover, most initiatives fail to recognise individual differences among employees. They assume a one-size fits all approach to change which does not take account of personal behavioural preferences or an individual’s life or career stage. Imagine, for example, a company trying to increase motivation and team bonding through a karaoke evening – almost certainly a disaster in a group of people with predominantly introverted personalities.
“With precise diagnostics and tangible metrics to improve the employee experience your organisation can fulfil its true potential.”
Organisations need to be as precise in how they look at culture as they are in defining the optimal sales or marketing strategy or planning their finances. To understand and change culture they need real, measurable data, meaningful metrics, and pinpoint solutions. This is what the MotivationMetrics programme does.
The MotivationMetrics programme has three core elements which work together to map and understand the behaviours in an organisation in order to design targeted solutions which will deliver exceptional performance.
AlphaDiagnostics is our proprietary tool for mapping motivation. It gives unparalleled levels of insight into the drivers of motivation, trust, cooperation, and resilience in your organisation. This process is complemented by a state-of-the-art toolkit we are building to capture and analyse real-time, high frequency data which will enable businesses to take a spot check on their organisation at any point in time.
Psychometric analysis via our AlphaPsychometrics offering ensures that we apply the right solution to each challenge and that these solutions are not undermined by conflicts with individual personalities. We do this using Lumina Spark which we believe to be the best tool currently available on the market. Lumina enables us to guide organisations in creating solutions designed to meet the challenges identified by AlphaDiagnostics. It also helps employees understand their own behavioural preferences and take ownership of their careers, which has also been shown to increase motivation.
Lastly, AlphaSolutions is our bespoke series of digital learning units created to help your organisation address the issues identified via the AlphaDiagnostics process. It enables you to create appropriate solutions on a journey of continual improvement.
With precise diagnosis and tangible metrics to track behaviour change, the MotivationMetrics programme can help your organisation fulfil its true potential, outperform the competition, and deliver sustainable high performance by creating a happier, more productive workforce.
In subsequent articles in this series we will look at AlphaDiagnostics, AlphaPsychometrics, and high-frequency people analytics in more detail.
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