How the Web of
Cultural Change Works
The
web diagram works either of two ways. You can use the CD to answer the survey
questions, then allow the Excel spreadsheet to create your web. Or you can copy
the survey questions from Appendix 1, along with a blank web diagram provided
in Appendix 2, and make your own. The former is obviously easier, but for those
who want to go through the process the latter is offered.
The
web model works very simply. You answer the questions by scoring from 5 points
for strongly agree with the statement down to 1 point for strongly disagree.
Answer all of the questions so that the score is not biased when the element’s
values are added and portrayed on the web and the other charts.
In
Chapter 14 on communication, we discussed the need not only to send the
message, but also to make sure that it was understood. There is no easy
feedback mechanism with a book, yet it is my desire that there be clarity when
answering the questions. Therefore, you will find in Appendix 3 a list of all
of the survey questions that I thought could use some additional clarity along
with my thoughts about each. In this way, if you are unclear about a question,
you can look it up in the appendix to see what point I am trying to make.
17.5 An Example
In
order to assure a clear understanding of the survey, how it gets assembled
within the Excel spreadsheet, and what it looks like when shown as the web of
cultural change, I offer the following example. In this example, I do not show
the three bar or line charts that are represented on the baseline or
reassessment pages, only the primary web diagram. Suppose that your plant is
going through a change process designed to convert the site to a
reliability-focused work culture. The initiative seems to be having problems.
Barriers to change are being encountered and the organization often finds
itself unable to clear these hurdles. The site conducts a web of cultural
change survey in an attempt to pinpoint the problems. The survey results are shown
on Figure 17-7 and the resultant web diagram is shown in Figure 17-8.
In
Figure 17-7 we see the tabular results of the cultural changesurvey and in
Figure 17-8 the web diagram. Remember, these are based on the total scores of
the sixteen questions from each section. The questions are divided into sets of
four so that individual web diagrams can be developed for each of the four
elements of culture. In addition, the rings of the web have significance. The
inner ring (0 to 16) is a very poor score, the next ring (17 to 32) is poor,
the next (33 to 48) is average, the next (49 to 64) is good and the outer ring
(65 to 80) is very good. From our example, we see that we have five scores
within the average ring and three in the poor ring. This information and the
sub web diagrams will be very important for the analysis phase in Chapter 18.
17.6 Introduction to Reassessment
Just
as it is important to get a good baseline score so that you can focus your
analysis, it is also important to reassess your progress after a time period –
usually six months — in order to see what progress has been made. The
reassessment is handled with a separate tab within the Excel diagram. The
charts provided are similar to the ones in the baseline; however, they show
both the baseline and the reassessment scores. In this way, you can truly focus
your attention on areas that have not improved, areas that you thought would
improve but didn’t, and in some cases areas that may have gotten worse as a
result of actions that you have taken.