Defining Organisational Character: Global Alliance, September 2012

An organisation’s character, like those of people, is determined by its history, but largely by the values it adopts and pro-actively lives by. No-one imposes these values, they are self-determined.

The actual values an organisation lives and operates by shapes its culture, frames the interactions it has with all stakeholders and ultimately how it acts. As with a person, if an organisation does not live by the values it purports to, then stakeholders are entitled to question its authenticity. Any gap that exists between how an organisation says it should act (its declared values), and how it actually acts (its real values), or put more simply the difference between stakeholder s’ encouraged expectations and the organisational reality, raises questions about the organisation’s authenticity which in turn generates potential reputational risks and other issues.

With the explosion of communications technology, the impact of digital and social media and increasing pressure for organisational transparency, the magnifying glass has never been so acutely focused on organisations and how they operate. Organisational authenticity and integrity is public relations’ territory and is why practitioners should be involved in helping determine and/or test the ‘character’ as expressed in the values that underpin how an organisation makes decisions and behaves. Does the organisation truly live by its values? Does it have the proof points to back this up? If not, what strategic options does this generate? And, do the values stack up against what stakeholders expect of it?

In our working group we will develop a visual aid that will help practitioners think through what is required of them when considering and communicating organisational character, and a practical tool (possibly called an Integrity Index) that helps organisations to identify if and how they live up to their values. The tool can be used not only as a measure of integrity, but as a means for stimulating discussions and actions that address issues that affect the purpose, strategy and operations of organisations. We believe this will provide a significant and practical outcome from the Mandate discussions and help further move public relations up the strategic value chain.

Copyright © 2012 Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management. All rights reserved.

• Leadership

• Culture

• Values

Mission

The Why

PR Role:Check that values are being lived by the organisation

and have external support

PR Role: Questioning/ testing/

re-asserting/re-legitimising purpose

PR Role:Help

communicate mission, model character and

values and inspire support

Understanding and Communicating Organisational

Character1

Shaping Organisational Character

PR Role:Ensuring structures, processes, behaviour and ways of working

reflect values. Creating initiatives and

programmes that bring this to life

Shaping Organisational Character

PR Role:Enhancing, maintaining

and/or protecting organisational

authenticity and integrity

DNA

DNADNA

Understanding and Communicating Organisational Character

• Vision/Mission. The ‘why’ an organisation exists which is to fulfil a particular purpose as encapsulated in its vision (what an organisation wants to be in the future) and mission (what it has to do to get there). This includes careful consideration of how it establishes its place in the world, determines the type of organisation it will be and/or the marketplace role it will undertake.

• PR ROLE: Contributing to keeping an organisation focused on its purpose and the legitimacy of that purpose – the why of the organisation. We do this by questioning/ testing/ re-asserting/ re-legitimising the purpose with stakeholders and listening to them.

• The ‘how’ is the way the Vision is delivered and concerns the factors and principles that guide decisions, actions and behaviours. How the vision is delivered reflects the character of an organisation and is intimately connected to the mission since it also impacts on what the organisation decides it will and can do. The ‘how’ is made up of three strands which together weave the core of the organisation – its DNA

• Values – the set of values the organisation lives by and which guides decision-making (what the organisation does) and behaviour (how it enacts those decisions).

• PR ROLE: Internally, to check that the values as stated guide decisions and actions, and externally that they are recognised, understood , believed and supported by stakeholders. This can be checked and assessed by regularly evaluating the organisation against those values and by monitoring off and on-line discussions about the organisation.

• Leadership – it is the responsibility of leaders to model the character and values of the organisation and the way they believe it should operate through the decisions they take and the direction they set

• PR ROLE: To help leaders best communicate these beliefs to inspire stakeholders to follow, support, or change behaviour and. to help leaders understand where they need to change too because of changing circumstances. To ensure leaders are equipped to be effective communicators and to embrace their communication responsibilities.

• Culture – the processes, structures, collective behaviour and ways of working that are part organisational life and that affect the way people and groups interact with each other internally and with external stakeholders.

• PR Role: Working with senior managers to ensure that structures, processes and ways of working reflect the claimed organisational character and values. Creating initiatives and programmes that bring the culture to life, including recommending the most appropriate channels, content and tone for delivery.

• The three strands combine to create the Organisational Character and clearly interact however, they may not necessarily be working in harmony. For example, the values may not be modelled in the leadership or the culture, and the leadership may not reflect the true organisational culture.

• Shaping organisational character:

• PR ROLE: Our role is enhance, maintain and/or protect the organisation’s authenticity by: being the guardian of the organisation’s character and values; providing feedback to the organisation on how the organisational character is being judged and received; and promoting the organisational character to stakeholders.

The Integrity Index and Testing Values

Values are the publicly declared ‘contract’ that an organisation has with its stakeholders on how it will fulfil its mission and purpose: a declaration of what principles guide its decisions-making and behaviour. Given that values are so closely tied to and indeed, define character, the extent to which an organisation lives up its values is a test of its authenticity and integrity.

Why values are a legitimate measure of integrity:1. Values are chosen by organisations, not imposed upon them and therefore it is legitimate to judge

them on their performance against them.2. Values can be 'elastic' and amenable to multiple and local interpretation and therefore can be

culturally neutral. 3. They open up avenues for public relations professionals to engage in strategic discussions in their

organisation and this is important for their and the discipline’s positioning. 4. The Integrity Index is a potentially potent tool both internally (as a shaper of culture and action) and

externally (as a measure of confidence and as a shaper of action).Values can be checked in one or both of two ways:5. Outside –in: where existing discussions about an organisation are analysed, values ‘in use’ can be

abstracted. For example, by using a social media partner, it would be possible to undertake analysis of a variety of stakeholders to identify the range of values that are attributed to an organisation and by whom. It would also be possible to build an overall picture. The same principle can apply to traditional media analysis and to other forms of conversation and feedback between an organisation and its stakeholders.

6. Inside-out: where the organisation asks stakeholders to rate their performance against declared values using the values spidergram.

The matching of these two perspectives brings enriched insights.

 

4

The values spidergram and explanation

Example of a health organisation Spidergram Explanation of process

• The Spidergram method can be used to test with various groups how they rate against their proposed or actual values.

• These ratings are then used to initiate discussions on the disparities between groups on each value and between values. The ratings for an organisation are not intended to be compared against another organisation (e.g. a competitor) but to stimulate strategic discussion and act as a catalyst for positive internal change.

• An index2 can be developed for each value or the combination of Values by using the algorithm:

Sum of values rating X 100. Maximum possible Values score

Example: An organisation has 6 values: they are rated on the Spidergram as 8 for two of the Values, 4 for two and 9 and 3 for the other two.

8+8+4+4+9+3= 36.

Maximum possible (6X10) = 60

36/60 = 0.6, X 100 = 60%

This calculation can be adjusted to score each Value: 5 on the scale obviously converts to 50%

• The utility of this method is that is graphically demonstrates areas of strength and authenticity when values are rated well and of areas where issues exist. 5Notes 1 and 2. The thinking behind organisational character, the diagram on page 2 and the Integrity Index are the intellectual property of the

Character Working Group of the Global Alliance who should be acknowledged when citing this work.