Thomas Industrial Library

17.7 Large Group or Small Group Surveys

A question often comes up regarding how you should conduct the web of cultural change survey. Unlike Successfully Managing Change in Organizations: A Users Guide where the web questions were generic and could be answered without an understanding of the material in the text, this does not hold true for the web of cultural change. As you know from reading the text, there are concepts, terms, and definitions that must be clearly understood before one can take the survey and return accurate results. Therefore, the first step to approaching the web survey is to provide participants with the survey information contained in the text, making certain that they understand the material before proceeding. The group participating can be as small as one person (you) or as many as you wish. Certainly a broader population of people answering the questions will provide you with a better web diagram, but getting everyone to allocate the time to understand the material prior to the web survey may prove somewhat difficult.

In order to support your effort in this area, the CD that comes with this book also contains a Power Point presentation, with voice giving you an oversight into the content of the text. Although it does not provide all of the information contained in this book, it will give you a mechanism to educate your team and position them to conduct the survey.

There is also a spin-off benefit if you and your team are able to allocate the time required. When people in the future speak about the need to change the organizational culture, those who have participated in the learning process will understand what this truly means and how difficult the effort will be for the organization.