Organizational Clarity: "Confidential Survey" article

After reading this article about not completing the “confidential employee” survey, I realized although I have never been in a situation of having two dual entities warring to have me complete a survey to prove their points. I realized that whenever I was given a “confidential employee” survey, I did not complete it because I was always hounded (like the person in the article) to complete the survey. My question then was how confidential was it, if everyone and their mother knew I did not complete it?

I always wondered why organizations would use a “confidential” survey to create an illusion that this process is secret when is not. When a one-on-one with supervisors and their employees would, in fact, increase morale, improve human performance, and communication wherever the concentration existed. Creating this falsehood only disillusions the stakeholders of the organization and creates a breakdown of communication and trust. This is reaffirmed in the Forbes article listed below.

Add to that my studies within an Organizational Development program you start to understand when surveys such as this should be used and how unfortunately, it is not how most organizations use this tool. Instead of employee development and integrating employees into the organizational culture surveys are used to root out the “troublemakers” and to dissuade dissenting opinions or voices for needed change.

Rooting out these “troubled voices” in the eyes of the organization is cheaper and far easier than creating actual organizational change, than retraining managers and maintaining an atmosphere of cooperation. The hierarchy structure of most organizations is highly prized no matter how the organization states it is closer to the Clan structure characteristics with a “family” type atmosphere; no organization wants the inmates running the asylum. So there is no reason that any of us will see an end to these “confidential employee” surveys anytime soon.

This is the Forbes article which discusses how this gentleman will NOT participate in “confidential employee” surveys:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2017/02/21/no-i-wont-complete-the-confidential-employee-survey/#38020e856187

Organizational Clarity: Explanation of the OCAI Assessment presentation

To explain the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument even further there is a slide share presentation by Yeliena Prokhorova from Enterprise’s Strategy Department, called “Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI): Practical Training” each slide is chockfull of information. The slides go from “What is Organizational Culture?” to a short analysis of Edgar Schein’s three levels of culture this helps explains what Organizational Culture is, what the assessment is about and basically why you should take the assessment.

Even though the slide share usually requires a LinkedIn account to download you can still view the slideshow by clicking on the link below. I really like how in-depth and brief the presentation was detailed the sequence of tasks of the OCAI assessment, knowing what the OCAI assessment is about may change your answers a bit, knowing about it, the assessment or with anything actually beforehand changes the outcome of what a person may decide.  

In this case, it may change how the person answers the questions naturally to with some type of skepticism or more analysis of a question, than if there was no or was a lack of knowledge when taking the assessment.

Click upon the presentation here:

http://www.slideshare.net/annaskiteva/encolloquium

Organizational Clarity: The OCAI assessment online

The OCAI assessment divides organizations into four primary structures or groups but most organizations are a mixture of these groups if you do the online questionnaire/assessment you will see the type you prefer or belong to currently.

This assessment is great to understanding where the average employee is and where they want to be. We all have preferences some based on cultural influences some based on professional goals or even experiences, this assessment gives you the insight to help one figure out the best fit for them.

So try it today: https://www.ocai-online.com/

Be careful comparing the results with fellow co-workers who also take the assessment it may lead to heavy debate or heavy eye rolling sessions as you may find out that you have more in common with your co-workers than you possibly want to acknowledge.