Did you know that very few CEOs see a strong connection between their companies’ people and culture initiatives and behaviors that support their business strategies? And yet companies spend thousands of dollars every year on employee surveys, professional development, coaching, and training trying to make that connection.
My question to you is this: are you truly getting your money’s worth from these programs and activities?
If you answered “no” or “I don’t know,” you aren’t alone. Many of us have invested in programs and advice that didn’t produce the results we wanted. With the best intentions, we may have relied on the latest fad, someone’s pet theory, or our own gut feelings.
An Evidence-Based Approach Produces Better Results
If you want better results, use a better tool. Base your decisions about your people and culture initiatives on the evidence of what works.
What Evidence-based Approaches Look Like
Evidence-based means that the tool, program or service has been developed and tested based on data. For example, when we developed our Sustainable Culture and Leadership Assessment instrument (SCALA), we compared the cultures of the companies with the best sustainability outcomes to those with significantly worse results. We developed the instrument accordingly.
Over the years, we tested the SCALA to see what it could tell us about the unique characteristics of purpose-driven companies. And now with 10 years of data from organizations around the world, we are able to describe the differences in the cultures of the sustainable companies from others, and we can also pinpoint the cultural and leadership factors most critical to embedding purpose into an organization. As a result of this evidence-based approach, our assessments provide companies with “how to” information that they can put into action immediately.
Why Evidence-based Solutions Are Better
Here are 3 reasons why you need the right kind of evidence to support your culture and people strategies if you want them to achieve business results.
Reason #1: Your hunches about people solutions could be wrong.
Our biases trump our ability to look for the underlying data that will show us whether our pet solution is likely to work.
When you make decisions about people and culture initiatives based on your hunches, you risk throwing time and money out the proverbial window. Perhaps you lean towards approaches that are simple and easy to implement. Or you may be attracted to programs popular with other professional colleagues. Undoubtedly many of us have fallen into the shiny object trap in which the latest fad or the flashiest sales pitch wins the day.
Reason #2: Your perceptions of the culture may fall far short of how others see it.
All of us have blind spots about our own behaviors as leaders.
Over the years our research has demonstrated just how out of touch leaders can become. In the hundreds of culture assessments that we have conducted, our data almost always show that leaders view their company cultures and their own leadership behaviors much more positively than do others.
Reason #3: The data is limited to describing rather than prescribing practical actions.
Even when the data accurately describe your cultures, leadership styles, and challenges, the descriptions may not provide you with any help in deciding how to address the issues uncovered. Descriptive data, no matter how convincing, don’t always give us enough information to know what to do.
Your Next Steps: Adopt Evidence-based People Solutions
No wonder people and culture programs often fail to produce results that support business purpose and strategy. Many times we fall into traps of overestimating our hunches and perceptions with very little to back up our conclusions. If you want a strong ROI for your people strategies, adopt a solid evidence-based approach:
- Look for the underpinnings of any solutions offered to you by consultants and salespeople. Can they provide you with solid explanations of how their program or service was developed and tested? And look beyond meaningless jargon that they may offer in the fine print.
- Avoid standard solutions. While your company undoubtedly shares some common context with others, many aspects of your organization and its purpose are unique. Choose solutions that can be tailored to your specific circumstances.
- Select services that will provide you with data that describe your organization’s current state, and will also point to actions you can take to achieve your desired goals.
You can improve the connections between your people and culture-related initiatives and the company’s business strategies. Follow an evidence-based approach and your efforts are much more likely to yield the strategic results your CEOs are looking for.
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Or just want to learn more about developing a Sustainable Culture?