Does Your Culture Inspire Excellence?

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1 Does Your Culture Inspire Excellence? Inspirational Community Survey

2 7 Steps to build an Inspirational Culture within your Organization Every organization, no matter how small or large, can benefit from an increase in engagement and building of an Inspirational Culture. Since company culture impacts your organization s employee satisfaction, customer happiness, and overall growth, building an Inspirational Culture in your organization can result in complete transformation and revolution. Before starting the process, you must assess where your company is currently at to figure out which steps are most beneficial and effective to grow your company s Inspirational Culture. After reading the 7 steps, take the survey below to assess your organization. Add up the numbers to obtain an Inspirational Culture score, and find the corresponding steps in the scorecards to focus your efforts. This survey and scorecards are developed and provided by Robert Van Arlen Global. For more information or help with building your Inspirational Community, contact info@robertvanarlen.com. Robert Van Arlen Global Robert Van Arlen Global All rights reserved. info@robertvanarlen.com Phone:

3 1. Know your Purpose: What is your purpose as a company? What are the outcomes for your customers? Is your primary purpose related to services, sales, production, marketing, engineering, or innovation through rigorous research & development? Your company possibly involves many subcultures within the entire ecosystem. Example: Marketing is just one of many aspects of the Nike corporation. New innovation, distribution, and sales functions are all subcultures within the Nike brand/community. 2. Commitment to Genre of Excellence: Where are you cutting corners? Why? What do you predict each of your Executives would respond to this question for their respective departments? What is your dominant business activity? Is it marketing, sales, service, and innovation? Genre of Excellence is the one area or activity in your organization that you want to lead the entire industry in. 3. Collaboration: How is your organization fostering teamwork? Who takes leadership serious in your company? Who in your company is willing to connect, network, and cultivate relationships? How are the departments in your company flowing? Is there an us versus them dynamic present? If so, how do you keep the flow amongst departments positive, inspirational, and productive? 4. Mentorship: How are individuals on your team being mentored? Are senior staff members able and willing to take time to share stories where they made mistakes, in addition to their success stories? When mistakes are made, what happens? How are entry- level and mid- level hires able to succeed and see a trajectory for their growth and evolution within their area of expertise? How necessary is ongoing education to your purpose and setting milestones? 5. Awareness & Style How is your brand perceived to the outside world? How do your web site, social media outlets, and outward facing approaches reflect your purpose, mission, and values to the market? How important is it to your company to be aware of others providing similar products or services? Are you aware of the market space and the community of practice relevant to your scope of work? What sets your company, services, and products apart from others in this space? Do you value research into competitors in the same or similar space? 7. Social Responsibility: What are the best community service organizations that would be a natural link to your brand? Is giving back important to you and your team? Do you feel your customers and clientele want to understand the origins of your products and their impact on the environment? Do you feel you re your consumers are willing to place value on environment friendly and sustainable products? 8. Creative Expression: How are best practices and solution- based approaches framed as creative and collaborative endeavors within your company? Is there a standard framework for meetings that give each participant a voice, even if it s minor? How are team meetings framed within your organization? Is there a standard or meaningful methodology that is used as a company- standard to bring clarity and timelines to meetings? All rights reserved.

4 Inspirational Community Survey Rank each question from 1 10 (1 is low and 10 is high) Question What level would you rate your organization s alignment to its purpose? What level would you rate the passion in your organization? What level would your rate the overall inspiration of your organization s culture? What level would you rate your dominant area of excellence? What level would your customers rate your organization s dominant area of excellence? What level would you rate your relationship with your vendors and suppliers, specifically the knowledge gained from them? What level would you rate your key customer strategy? How would you rate your organization s investment in growing creatively? How would your rate as your organization s commitment to innovation? What level would you rate the alignment of your corporate social responsibility strategy to your organization s purpose? Total Score Rank Scores: Results Maintaining and improving your inspirational culture. Established culture and you are aware where improvement is needed. No formal culture established; a development plan is needed. Changes and culture challenges within teams are needed. You are a new/small organization; you have not developed a culture yet. Seven Steps to Building an Inspirational Community: Vision Alignment (Purpose, Awareness, and Communication) Genre of Excellence (Process Improvement and Focus) Strategic Collaboration (Strategic Business Development, Strategic Internal Alliances) Creativity & Innovation (Inspiring Creativity and Innovation Planning) Balance (Developing Work/Life Passion) Mentorship (Human Capital Development, Succession & Legacy Planning) Corporate Social Responsibility (Team and Community Interaction) All rights reserved.

5 Your Inspirational Community Score is Your overall score indicates that your organization may either be new or it has completely failed to achieve any actions of an inspirational culture. This usually occurs when an organization has not taken the time to develop a strategic plan and is not focused on the growth of employees. These types of companies are prone to having transactional mindset. Incremental gains are possible, but multi- dimensional growth is not being captured. If the skills and capabilities are not in place, it is highly recommended to employ external coaches to assist in building your plan and strategy. Your organization has the opportunity to create the culture it desires. The seven steps are a great platform to build values for team members to experience and share. You have the best opportunity to engage everyone in your organization. It is highly recommended that you discuss your next steps with the person that sent you this report All rights reserved.

6 Your Inspirational Community Score is Your overall score indicates that your organization has an opportunity for major growth through culture transformation. Your scores are low in a number of areas and bring about serious culture challenges. You are not alone as many teams struggle to find their identity. Once you ve established a clear vision, work with your leadership team to achieve full buy- in. As more people understand and begin to live and demonstrate the values, you will experience a momentum. It starts at the top of the organization. The ability and confidence of your leadership team is important for communication of your vision. Share your vision and values with every new hire and current team member. Provide examples of what living the values of your organization looks and feels like. It is not important that you attempt to achieve the seven steps immediately. Culture transformation takes time. To bring a bit of passion to the mix, you can begin to identify, strategize, and exploit your genre of excellence. What does your company excel in delivering? This could be a product, service, and/or strategy. Your genre of excellence will provide focus and action toward a goal. It will begin to establish your inspirational culture identity. Consider sharing your plans with the person that sent you this report All rights reserved.

7 Your Inspirational Community Score is Your overall score indicates that your culture is an informal culture and there is an opportunity to grow in at least three of the seven steps to achieve an inspirational culture. This journey can change the dynamics and effectiveness of your entire organization. If you already have a plan to address your culture, it is important to focus. First and foremost, review your vision and primary objectives. Ask yourself and the leaders of your organization, do we have alignment amongst our teams? If not, develop a communication strategy that includes visual aids, team meetings, events, and one- on- one communication. Remember the farther away team members are from the top, the more you need to communicate. Next, if your genre of excellence is not clear, implement a strategy that clarifies and showcases what your company excels in delivering. This could be a product, services, and/or strategy. You should choose one other area of the seven steps and add it to your strategy. If you rated low in collaboration, make it part of your ongoing strategy. Internal and external alliances can have an immediate impact on culture. One of the most important actions to consider is failure. An inspirational culture thrives on growth. Growth can only be accomplished through ownership. Allow your teams to learn and growth from their mistakes, while mitigating major risk All rights reserved.

8 Your Inspirational Community Score is Your overall score indicates that your organization has an established culture and a great deal of focus is placed on strategic planning. Although you have an established culture, there is always room for improvement. An established culture should inspire creativity, which can lead to new innovation. Capturing opportunities to develop leaders through mentorship will create a winning environment. You should review every answer you selected on the IC Survey to determine your priorities for improvement. Any score under a 7 should be included in your priorities for improvement, especially if it will help you achieve your vision and goals. One area of impact for established cultures is work/life passion. Take the opportunity to look at your organization from the inside out. There are always blind spots, and they usually occur through change. As an organization s culture becomes more settled, individual goals and company goals will lose their alignment. Leaders in the company should check the alignment of personal goals with company goals. There must always be a connection or plan in place if the alignment changes. Other blind spots may include changes in your genre of excellence and CSR strategy All rights reserved.

9 Your Inspirational Community Score is Your overall score establishes that your culture is closely aligned with your vision and goals. What s important for your team is to sustain and look for opportunities to build upon this dynamic strength. You may consider a strategic focus on communication, teambuilding, and training that inspires individuals to achieve even greater level of excellence. Your immediate focus should always be on your genre of excellence. Use your genre of excellence as a method for continued growth. Exploit your genre of excellence as a way to keep team members excited and engaged in your vision. You should also explore opportunities to expand upon engagement within your community as a way to increase the passion within your organization. Your vendors and suppliers should understand your culture goals, as they can collaborate and support your efforts in many ways. Finally, there are those on your team that can become culture ambassadors through mentorship. These individuals are capable of helping others understand the benefits of an inspirational culture. If you gave yourself a score of 7 or below on any question, carefully review the question and determine what would change for your team if you were to focus on improving this action All rights reserved.