Getting the measure of culture: from values to business performance (page 3 of 3)

In addition to the main Trompenaars' cross-cultural database, we have also collected and indexed some 6500 dilemmas faced by our client respondents in their respective organizations across the world gathered over the last four years. Coding and subsequent analysis of these dilemmas using clustering and data mining algorithms reveals a frequently re-occurring series of 'Golden Dilemmas' that provide a basis for a structured approach to diagnosing organisational challenges that owe their origin to cultural differences.

An example 'Golden Dilemma' faced by organizations that their leaders must address:



The really exciting part of this third wave based on our new dilemma database, is that we have been able more recently to converge on a number of key diagnostic measures that reveal how these meta-level dilemmas manifest at the operational level and how these link to bottom-line business performance. We first help participants make such 'Golden Dilemmas' explicit and therefore tangible through our structured 'Dilemma Reconciliation Process'. We then assess the current status of the dilemma against an ideal espoused state that would result when the business benefits had been realised. These vectors are then used to evaluate varying reconciliation strategies.



We are now in a position to now evaluate business benefits against the costs, time scales to realise benefits and the degree to which the dilemma solution in located in one profit center or involves co-operation across a number of business units.

The example summarises the top level descriptions of the Golden Dilemmas faced by the key account managers of a major US organisation and how they were subsequently placed on the dilemma relationship portfolio matrix using our new measurement techniques.



This type of analysis provides an objective evaluation of where the highest return on investment can be achieved and thus secures the best benefits to the business. In this particular case, the most important cultural dilemma that needed to be addressed was the need for technology push (what the company can make from its own intellectual capital) versus what the different markets want (what the organisation could sell).

As the world market place becomes ever more oligopolistic and more competitive, leaders need such frameworks and their associated tools to provide a decision making framework that prioritises actions.

Is this the 'holy grail'? Not yet, we are now researching a fourth phase in which we can quantify the dilemmas between the organization and its societal responsibilities. These will become increasingly important to organizations in the future as G8 world leaders wrestle with their own needs with those of unhealthy and hungry third world, declining (finite) raw materials, global warming and poverty ~ let alone the threat from terrorism.

Our own satisfaction derives from having reconciled our own intrinsic interest in researching the subject of culture with providing real operational support to our clients that we now know makes their organizations more sustainable.

If only we had these insights 10 years ago.....