“The way to change culture is not to first change how people think, but instead to start by changing how people behave—what they do.” R. Westrum

What do we mean by culture?

Culture can be defined as the organisation’s pattern of response to the problems and opportunities it encounters. Recent studies have found that an organisational culture that is high-trust and emphasises information flow can predict high-performance software delivery and organisational performance.

This idea is based on research by sociologist Dr. Ron Westrum - his research covers the human aspect of system safety, particularly in the context of accidents in technological domains such as aviation and healthcare. Westrum describes three main typologies - pathological, bureaucratic, and generative. These typologies are shaped by the preoccupations of the leadership. The teams then respond to these priorities, creating the culture.

A focus on personal needs leads to a pathological environment, a focus on departmental turf to a bureaucratic style, and a focus on the mission to a generative style.

In this model, there are 6 behavioral aspects seen in the generative culture:

• High cooperation
• Messengers are trained
• Risks are shared
• Bridging is encouraged
• Failure leads to inquiry
• Novelty is implemented

Common pitfalls of organizational culture

Organizational cultures with high information flow often encounter the following pitfalls:

• Ignoring the importance of culture altogether, and treating technical work as a technology and process challenge only.
• Focusing only on local team cultures, and not reaching out to also understand how team cultures interact with the broader organizational culture.
• Not having enough support, or appropriate support, from leaders and managers for the necessary culture shift and transformation.
• Ignoring or punishing bad news. It’s better to understand that failures are inevitable in complex systems, and treat them as opportunities to improve and learn.
• Not encouraging novelty. Admiral Grace Hopper, the famed computer science pioneer and inventor of the compiler, once said, “The most dangerous phrase in the language is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’” Allowing and encouraging teams to experiment and try new things will make work better.

By focusing on the six aspects of Westrum’s typology, teams and organizations can work thoughtfully and meaningfully toward improving their culture.

You would love to experiment more, but don’t know where to start?
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How to measure organizational culture

Organizational culture is a perceptual measure, and therefore, best measured using survey methods. The Westrum survey measures, included here, are highly valid and reliable statistically.

• On my team, information is actively sought.
• Messengers are not punished when they deliver news of failures or other bad news.
• On my team, responsibilities are shared.
• On my team, cross-functional collaboration is encouraged and rewarded.
• On my team, failure causes inquiry.
• On my team, new ideas are welcomed.

We include these culture questions in our survey. They are presented together—unlabeled and untitled—with responses ranging from Strongly Disagree (=1) to Neither Agree nor Disagree (=4) to Strongly Agree (=7). They are a latent construct, which means an average of their scores can provide a single score for your Westrum culture metric.

Find more about our survey.

Learn more

• A typology of organisational culture, by Ron Westrum
• Google Cloud, Cultural Capabilities