Engagement — the Culture Quandary

How to avoid a costly culture bypass...

In my last article I promised a specific, illustrative example for the pervasive confusion around how when orgs only measure engagement they fail to realize they are only measuring work climate/not work culture— it’s not the same thing. It isn’t wrong to measure engagement; it’s just incredibly incomplete at best and incompetent at worst. A culture bypass increases the likelihood of misdiagnosing, mistreating and failing to optimize organizational health.

Here a textbook example:

For ~3 years, they made “steady but slow” progress towards a full digital transformation. Despite high engagement scores and reported “high confidence” in the leadership team… the SLT was growing more frustrated and confused by how much faster competitors were making the same AI/digital shift. “What’s wrong with our culture — why can’t we go faster?”

During that three year time period, a substantial amount of effort and money was invested in operating model “fixes” to overcome organizational level quality and external adaptability outcome issues (e.g., agile, lean startup, digital skills training, scenario planning training, creative work spaces, tech replacements and a complete or restructure).