LEADERSHIP & CULTURE
SERVICES
We are proud to use the best-in-class individual effectiveness, leadership, management and organizational assessment and development tools from Human Synergistics in our leadership and culture work.
Leaders Establish, Role Model and Enforce Culture
Culture is the sum of mindsets, beliefs, values and behaviours that identify, describe and bind a group. When it comes to your organizational culture, while it is true that everyone owns and contributes, those in positions of authority have the greatest influence on how your culture manifests every single day in your people. And the higher the position, the more influence a leader has. Think about it. Your people want to be successful, so they study those in leadership roles to show them how. If a negative culture creates a disconnect with who they are as people and professionals, they will either adapt, suffer in silence, or just leave.
Regardless of the path chosen, a negative culture will negatively impact your brand and bottom line through loss of product and service quality, failed projects, low employee engagement, the inability to attract and retain talent, the inability to execute on strategic objectives, and eroding customer service. As a leader, if you see any of those symptoms, you need to pay attention.
Regardless of what leaders say, or the policies they enact, it is their behaviour that really tells your people what it's going to take to fit in and succeed. Are bullies and autocrats the ones who actually get rewarded and promoted? If so, the message is clear. You have to be a bully and an autocrat to get ahead here. On the other hand, if your leaders truly embody and role model trust, collaboration, teamwork, integrity, and client service, your people will be right there too.
Two companies could have exactly the same product types, market share, organizational structure, policies, business processes and infrastructure. But everyone loves or wants to work at Company A, while nobody wants to work at Company B. Company A thrives. The difference is culture.
You cannot not have a culture. So it makes sense to take charge of it.
What Challenges are You Facing?
Leadership and Culture have a complex set of interactions and mutual impacts that are both immediate and long lasting. They create one or more specific challenges, and require different diagnostic and prescriptive tools to understand root causes and identify corrective strategies.
Click on the image, or images below, that describe one or more challenges you are facing.
I need to understand and improve the ways my thinking and behaviour affect my colleagues and customers. I want to become more effective in my job and be better able to manage stress and constant change. I want and need to become more flexible and creative in my work. I want to advance in the company, and I need to have the skills to do it.
We need to improve the effectiveness of our departmental and project teams. Right now, we spend more time on politics than productivity, and our deadlines suffer. Truthfully, management meetings are no better. They're mainly battles of perspective and priorities. Many times, whatever we end up with is sub-optimal and satisfies no one.
I need to help my managers up their game regarding their leadership skills with their people, and management skills in getting things done. Decisions keep getting pushed up to me in situations where they should be handling things themselves. They're not setting and tracking measurable goals either.
We need to be more adaptable and effective as an organization. We need to be able to effectively execute on our strategic objectives instead of constantly fighting fires. We need to be able to inspire our people to take personal ownership and walk the talk on our mission, vision and values. That includes everyone.
Individual Development:
The Life Styles Inventory™ and
Leadership Workstyles™
The Life Styles Inventory™ (LSI) enables individuals to think and behave to their full potential. It is particularly valuable for helping individuals to:
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discover new ways of thinking and behaving
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improve their effectiveness in their roles
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cope better with stress, pressure and change
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apply more flexible and creative thinking
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improve their interpersonal relationships
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increase their personal effectiveness.
The LSI is made up of two parts:
LSI1: Self-Description: measures personal thinking styles and relates these to perceived effectiveness (self-efficacy) and satisfaction at work and at home. This can be a standalone instrument.
LS12: Description by Others: colleagues describe their experience of the individual's behaviour.
Leadership WorkStyles™ (LWS) is a self and multi-rater development assessment tool that measures the thinking and behavioural styles that impact a manager's ability to lead. This tool provides leaders with highly personalized, qualitative feedback on how their ways of acting and reacting to people and situations affect their effectiveness.
When Leadership WorkStyles™ is used as part of a training program or as a personal development instrument, that learning is greatly enhanced because leaders will now have a frame of reference. Knowing that certain ways of thinking and behaving are more effective for leaders is important information. Knowing their tendencies in those same thinking and behaving patterns makes that information extremely relevant.
How We Typically Use the LSI and LWS
The LSI is an extremely valuable tool for self assessment, especially for those in leadership roles and individual contributors who work extensively within project or team environments, or those in customer facing roles. It can be used in new role or new employee onboarding / orientation, often done in cohort fashion to allow for group interaction and feedback.
The LWS works well for leaders at all levels of the organization, and is particularly valuable for those who are new to leadership positions.
Effective Individuals
37% less stressed
43% better working relationships
47% greater readiness for promotion
34% more effective at their role
Team Development:
The Group Styles Inventory™
The Group Styles Inventory™ (GSI) is the only research-based tool that provides a valid and reliable measure of how people in groups interact with each other and work as a team to solve problems. Using the GSI helps teams to:
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talk about team behaviours and the "elephants in the room" in a safe way
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have the conversations that matter
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illustrate the impact behaviours have on group performance
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create a platform to improvement planning for enhanced performance
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produce reliable data to use as a base for evaluation and change
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improve an individual's ability to work as part of a team
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allow group members to clearly identify what is helping or hindering the team in its efforts.
How We Typically Use the GSI
The GSI is normally delivered as part of a half or full day workshop in team building. It is used immediately following the delivery of a simulation exercise that requires teams to work together to solve a shared problem. The GSI accurately identifies both the strengths and challenges of intact organizationally-bound teams, project teams (especially those working within Agile/Scrum environments), large scale project teams that are brought together from different organizations, and leadership teams prior to and following mergers and acquisitions.
Effective Teams
96% more effective
48% more committed
60% less time wasted
69% increased solution quality
Leader and Manager Development: Leadership/Impact® and Management/Impact™
Leadership/Impact® (L/I)is a measurement and feedback tool designed to help those in leadership positions identify the relationship among how they lead, how this impacts on the behaviour of others, and how effectively they operate in the leadership role. It comprises two parts:
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Ideal impact and leadership strategies: The leader describes the behaviours they would like to promote in the people they lead. The leader also identifies how they lead in terms of 10 strategies.
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Actual strategies, impact and effectiveness: The leader selects colleagues, who then provide feedback to the leader. This includes behaviours they believe the leader promotes through their leadership, how they observe the leader's performance in the 10 strategies, and the leader's effectiveness in their role.
Designed for managers, Management/Impact™ measures the critical functions, their management approaches, and the impact these have on others' behaviour and performance. It comprises two parts:
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Ideal impact and management approaches: The manager describes the behaviours they would like to promote in the people they manage. The manager also identifies how they carry out their role in terms of 15 management approaches.
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Actual approaches, impact and effectiveness: The manager selects colleagues who then provide feedback. This includes behaviours they believe the manager promotes, how they observe the manager's performance in the 15 approaches, and the manager's effectiveness in their role.
How We Typically Use the L/I and M/I
These assessments are typically used either for specific leaders or managers, or to entire tiers of leadership and management in cohorts. Leaders and managers complete the self assessment, and are then assessed by colleagues, which can include their own manager, peers, and direct reports. Individuals are provided with a detailed one-on-one debriefing and coaching session. When deployed across a leadership or management tier, this can be followed by a cohort debriefing and action planning session using aggregate data.
Effective Leaders
35% more effective
23% more creative
36% better at resolving disagreements
24% better overall job performance
Organizational Development:
The Organizational Culture Inventory® and The Organizational Effectiveness Inventory™
The Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI ) measures an organization's ideal culture and the actual operating culture. It specifically examines culture from the perspective of behavioural norms - how people believe they are expected to behave in order to fit in and thrive (or sometimes survive).
The Organizational Effectiveness Inventory™ (OEI) measures the practices used throughout the organization that cause the current climate and how that shapes the current culture. It also measures a number of research-based outcomes of the culture at the individual, group and organizational levels.
The OCI and OEI work together to give you a complete picture of your organization's culture (the behaviours) and factors driving it - and, in turn, the behaviours the culture reinforces. The OCI/OEI measure both culture and climate to provide invaluable and actionable data on how they're connected, giving you the insights you need to create a more constructive culture and improve organizational effectiveness.
The OCI/OEI is invaluable for:
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identifying and building the business case for targets for change and improvement
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providing reliable feedback for planning change with a common model and language that can be applied for development across all levels of your organization
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supporting programs to enhance strategy implementation, employee engagement and inclusion, quality and reliability, and/or customer service
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monitoring and managing culture and climate over time to measure progress and to identify what is and what is not working.
How We Typically Use the OCI and OEI
The OCI can be deployed in conjunction with the OEI, or separately. These are typically large scale initiatives that can include cascades through the organization, starting at the top. Executive Leaders describe their ideal culture that they want to establish and promote within the organization. This is followed by assessment of the actual culture by direct reports and employees. Ideal and Actual culture profiles are produced. Executive Leaders are then provided with a detailed debriefing that presents aggregate data, and an action planning session for closing any gaps between the identified ideal and actual cultures. Based on the needs of the organization, subgroup analysis can be included.
Organizations with Constructive Cultures
29% more motivated and satisfied members
32% more agile and adaptable
29% better cooperation with and across business units
Gemba Group Solutions is not an agent of Human Synergistics, Inc., nor are services or products by Gemba Group Solutions endorsed by Human Synergistics, Inc. Descriptions of LSI, GSI, L/I, M/I, OCI and OEI tools used here primarily originate with and are copyright Human Synergistics, Inc.. They are used herein by permission.