The Culture Map: A Systematic & Intentional Tool For Designing Great Company Culture — Strategyzer 2/7/19, 8)40 AM

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The Culture Map: A

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Systematic & Intentional Tool

For Designing Great Company
Culture
Added on October 13, 2015 by Alexander Osterwalder.

If I asked you: what’s the one thing you’ll do differently tomorrow to make your
organization a better place to work, where would you start? How would you design,
communicate and implement an organizational culture that employees actually
embrace? In this post I introduce The Culture Map, a new tool that focuses on
employee development and aids in building better performing companies.

Earlier this year, Gallup pointed out in a poll that 7/10 employees are not engaged or are
actively disengaging at work. These people are not enjoying where they’re working and aren’t
giving their best.

There’s something broken here: people are not doing their best work and that’s because of poor
organizational cultures.

My hypothesis? Employees would be more engaged in the workplace if they were supported by

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better organizational cultures.

What is organizational culture?

Recommended Read: 8 Concrete Tips On How To

Intentionally Design Corporate Culture

Organizational culture is so important for engaging employees, yet for some reason we believe
it’s something that can’t be easily influenced. Yes, the phrase can come off as a fuzzy term, and
when you say you “want to design culture” in a company, the phrase can come off as something

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to suspect or impossible to accomplish. But if you have the right tools you can actually start
designing culture. It won’t be entirely mechanical, but you can do it more actively than it’s done
today.

Introducing the Culture Map

Dave Gray, author of The Connected Company, developed The Culture Map as a tool to design
better performing companies. We collaborated with Dave to make The Culture Map a practical,
simple, and visual tool.

The Culture Map was developed much like our other tools. You can use The Culture Map to map
out an existing or desired state. You can use it to communicate your culture internally. The map
can help design prototypes that can be tested. And finally, The Culture Map can help to develop
a framework that can be eventually implemented and scaled.

I like to call The Culture Map a tool that focuses on employee development.

How does The Culture Map work?

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Start by mapping behaviors: In this box you have to map out how your team acts or conducts
itself within the company. What do you do or say? How do you interact? What patterns do you
notice. Some examples: “Failing to identify expert team leaders” or “respond to customer
support tickets in 12 hours or less”.

Next, map your outcomes: What are the concrete positive or negative consequences because
of the behavior you’ve mapped out? An example: the behavior of failing to identify expert team
leaders may be resulting in an outcome of “constant conflict” within your organization. In a
positive situation, speedy customer support responses could result in “happy customers” within

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your organization.

Finish by mapping your enablers & blockers: This is where The Culture Map gets really
interesting. In enablers and blockers you have to map out all of the things that lead to the
positive or negative behaviors inside your company. What policies, actions, or rules are
influencing employees behaviors, and ultimately influencing your company’s outcomes? Some
examples of blockers: a poor bonus system or no budget for sticky notes. Some examples of
enablers: smart management team or a well made metrics dashboard.

But what about “company values”? Where do they go?

I’m often asked about company values and where they belong within corporate culture.Core
values are not lived if they are not designed into the organizational culture.

You have to have the right enablers to encourage the right behaviors to expect the right
outcomes. I really do believe that you can’t just slap a list of phrases on the wall and expect your
employees to enact and embrace them as values.

We believe that The Culture Map is one tool that can help to systematically and intentionally
design great company culture.

How does this fit with our toolbox?

Most companies are characterized by an execution culture that is focused on implementing an

existing business model. That works and that’s fine. It’s the building of innovation engines--a
space where companies can discover their future--that is the challenging task to achieve.

We’re starting to build the tools and processes, but companies don’t yet know how to confidently
create the right organizational culture for an innovation engine that can live alongside the
execution engine.

Do you think we can design culture?

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In Culture Map, Organizational Culture, Strategyzer POV, Strategyzer Tools

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Alex Papworth A year ago · 0 Likes

I would say yes. However, the starting point is to understand your existing culture. It
is not necessarily obvious when attempting to unpick behaviours that drive

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outcomes.
I would suggest that a Causal Loop Diagram would be a helpful tool to model,
explore and discuss this.
Here is a reasonable introduction for anyone who'd like to learn more -
http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/CausalLoopDiagram.htm
(includes CLD that was included in Limits To Growth work)

Jason Hand 2 years ago · 0 Likes

Of course you can design and drive culture ! The value in this tool is the focus on
"observable behavior". Values are nice, but what do they mean ? It's hard to get
someone to say that they do not value eg "honesty" or "integrity"... but ... what are
they observing when they decide someone is "honest" (or not) ? Looking someone
frankly in the eye might be interpreted as "honest" or "disrespectful" depending on
context and culture. Agreeing on the "values" is easy. Agreeing on the observable
behaviours which "demonstrate" the value is a great deal more challenging - and
worthwhile... it breathes life into otherwise empty "values".

John Pitchko 2 years ago · 0 Likes

This is a very cool idea. I am glad to see an easy way to model this for discussion
with team members. Looking forward to discussing this with my team.

Bhakti 2 years ago · 0 Likes

Hi...i think culture is what a person is from his/her childhood... yes people do change
or pretend to change. U cant force culture or design culture for any one....u have to
make them feel inclusive and actually involve them. And a sense of inclusiveness can
speak on its own in terms of their performance. People or different they think

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differently at every point...that thougt at all levels has to b absorbed...and used for
framing d foundation of d company culture....
"Every company has different culture"

Rik 2 years ago · 0 Likes

Not designing, step-by-step developing might work as described in the map. Using
a collaborative approach and making people aware of the underlying patterns in
their behaviour. Asking what is needed to change these patterns in new ones.

Thom Rabey 3 years ago · 1 Like

This is like Theory X and Theory Y - they both work.

If you think you can change/design culture you will.
If you think you can't change/design culture you won't.
Both sides will have anecdotal evidence proving they are correct - and they will be.

I think we need to make the decision to change the culture - then make the changes
that produce the right behavior.
If I value others I will share with them - this will result in the behavior of
communication which is an enabler.
But if I just mandate team meetings I will get wasted time because no one will share
anything important at the team meeting.

We can shape culture but only if we get real, personal change from the leaders.

Kerry Favero-Rivera 3 years ago · 0 Likes

This is certainly good tool for discussion with leaders to help them focus on what
their desires are for their organization.

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Limesh Parekh 3 years ago · 0 Likes

sounds interesting, needs to be explored. Will revert after giving it a serious try.

Jason Porterfield 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I would argue that culture can be designed in a new organization when the
leadership consciously decides to do so. In established medium and larger
organizations I think the culture has evolved over time. In those situations
consciously deciding to change it is easy execution is the monumental task. It takes
time and perseverance

Walter Zondervan 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I'm not really sure if culture can be designed. But to determine the appropriate
culture of .cooperation within an organization I've used the As One methodology
(Deloite).

Paul H 3 years ago · 0 Likes

currently in the process of designing a culture... so i would YES... of course you can
design it. But in order to sustain it... you have to live it!

Devin B. Hedge 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I would encourage folks to look at the book, "Change the Culture, Change the Game:
The Breakthrough Strategy for Energizing Your Organization and Creating
Accountability for Results" by Roger Connors and Tom Smith. Also "Organizational

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Culture and Leadership" by Edgar H. Schein. Connors goes into a definition of

culture in depth. Conner's model is Results (Outcomes) --> Behavior --> Beliefs (3
degrees of Values) --> Experiences (that created the beliefs).

Keep up the awesome work!

Daniel Shapiro 3 years ago · 1 Like

In the book Change the Culture, Change the Game:

http://www.amazon.com/Change-Culture-Game-Breakthrough-
Accountability/dp/B004LC4XG0, i think the authors do a great job introducing a
stronger culture model that I use today. It's similar but I believe has more power as it
brings into focus values, beliefs and discusses how these things align toward or
against your corporate success/failures. Take a look! I suggest adopting that model
if possible.

Henrik Mitsch 3 years ago · 0 Likes

We used the Culture Map at the Mozilla Festival in London today. A session in the
participation space gathered 8 people who used the map to understand
community/cultural challenges in: coaching sports teams, teaching youth,
journalism, Indian Mozilla communities, neibourhood conversations and science
community building.
Thank you Dave and Alex!

Cristiam de Oliveira 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I am sure (we not only can) we must create high performance and high Ethical
culture.

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Gary Wong 3 years ago · 3 Likes

Permit me to offer a different perspective, a complexity-based approach. I'll start

with the premise that culture is an emergent property of a complex adaptive
system. So we really can't design culture but we can design and create the
conditions that influence and shape it.
An analogy would be adding hot water to coffee grounds. What emerges is aroma.
Culture is the smell of the values, beliefs, behaviors practiced in an organization.
Individuals come with their own built-in cognitive biases. A enabler for one may be a
barrier for another. A behavior I deem wrong may be viewed as right by another
person because I don't have the full context. A poor bonus system could be
considered great by another.
A culture map is at best a useful but always incomplete representation of reality. It's
a starting point for dialogue rather than diagnosis.
What we do is become ethnographers and collect narratives; stories are a preferred
way to capture experiences. Stories can't be dismissed like opinions since they are
real-life occurrences in the organization. If we gather enough stories and place them
on a paper map, patterns or themes will emerge.
You can start collecting stories manually in one 1 department using Post-it notes.
Because it's scalable, you can invite another department to add their stories and
observe if identified patterns are reinforced or new ones emerge. To engage the
entire workforce 24/7/365, we can use online story gathering and continually update
digital map representations of the culture.
The design question now is: What might we change in order to shift future stories
from to over there?
When we implement a change intervention, we can monitor the impact by noticing
how the stories are shifting. This is the essence of what we call a Human Sensor
Network: a near real-time feedback system on how the culture is co-evolving.
And it's all doable today.

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Mj 3 years ago · 1 Like

From my point of view, I Think, culture is our habits, is all that we acquired during all
our life, and it's related by our family context, our friends environment, and, of
course, by our work environment. We can, most of times we have to, change our
culture so as to grow as person and employee, that includes the process of design
wich kind of culture we want at our personal and professional life.
To sum up, sure, we can design new cultures, it is a slow and hard process that
needs lot of perseverance and good tools.

Marvin Fray 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Company culture is something that a lot of us are aware of as a concept but find it
difficult to control or adapt. I have no experience of using the Culture Map but like
the business model canvas and other similar tools, it seems it would help visualise
the situation and the actions that can be taken to move in the desired direction. Its
definitely something i am going to try.
When do you think is the optimum point in a start-up to give culture serious thought
and time? I guess this depends somewhat on the number of employees you have?
Or perhaps I'm being naive.

Patrick Lauruol 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Hi Marvin

A culture emerges the moment two people (or more) get together regularly.
At this stage the culture is more about norms than an easily identifiable
cultural ethic.

Some people start formalising their culture as soon as they start a project and

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that becomes a core part of their value proposition.

Others may wait until they've hit a certain number of employees, and then
actively encourage the development of a culture. I think Microsoft and Google
are two examples of organisations which developed cultures based on the
mindsets of their founders. In both cases, a lot of work went into keeping the
culture the way it the founders envisioned.

Participative cultural development, not necessarily, but you can work with
people how you see appropriate. :)

Patrick

Sergiu PAduraru 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I agree with David - you need to have values. They are part of the company's cultural
foundation and so they should be "the foundation" of the cultural map. Sometimes -
we might get surprised that it's one of the corporate values - widely misinterpreted,
that generates blockers.
Then, I think that it would be useful to have the whole strata split in two - where we
are now and where we want to be. You can do it on two different maps, of course,
but concentrated on one page is better.
The crux of the whole enterprise here is to have colleagues and employees with
propensity towards honesty and open discussions. Because otherwise you will never
get the real picture out of this map. You can build it on your own, but then you will
be exposed to "bias" and "subjectivity" criticism.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

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David Coombe 3 years ago · 0 Likes

The tool will be useful in developing horizontal growth in organisations. I would love
to add a perspective from self-managing organisations such as those describe in
"reinventing organisations" by Frederic Laloux. to promote vertical growth.

Allan Cheng 3 years ago · 0 Likes

It's a fantastic tool! Thank you for sharing.

I'm reiterating Simon Sinek's notion of having a purpose or belief that will resonate
with the values one develops, in which drove behaviours - in his book "Starting with
Why".

With this perspective, where would the creation of belief or purpose sits? Is it
generated from the enablers?

Ricardo Sazima 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Number 3 highest priority in new ventures, just after validating P/M fit and biz
viability.

NIARAMI 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I guess employees would be more motivated if they were not told to be only
motivated by profit

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Herbert 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I enjoyed Laszlo Bock, and resonated when he wrote "Culture eats Strategy for
Breakfast".
You are onto something here - Will monitor - Well done great initiative..

https://www.workrules.net/uk

Patrick Lauruol 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Hi guys

From experience facilitating groups, templates need to have boxes to capture the
group members ideas regarding all the core aspects of the topic under discussion.

My opinion of the template above is that it misses some of the key areas which will
impact the development of a new culture.

I believe the culture canvas proposed by Javier Munoz at Delivering Happiness.com

is more comprehensive and better suited to the task of discussing culture
development.

You'll find his original culture canvas at http://deliveringhappiness.com/how-to-do-a-

culture-due-diligence/

So what do I think is missing from the culture map being presented?

Boxes to guide the user to identify all the actors who will promote or work against
any changes being proposed. Changes always face encumbrances both internal and
external. Any discussion of developing a culture also needs to factor in who's
impacted and what practical factors work for and against each change proposed.

There are a few tools which kind of cover this already.

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The Lean Change Canvas is relevant for tracking the people who will be impacted
and the additional practical factors which work for and against each change. Check
out the Lean Change Canvas at http://leanchange.org/2013/12/a-leaner-lean-
canvas/

Existing forcefield analysis templates and stakeholder analysis templates would help
any team trying to develop their culture too.

In the articles linked below you'll find plenty of existing templates to use during your
team discussions.

Regarding the forcefield analysis, here's a good article with templates you can use
to track everything which works towards and against your desired cultural changes
http://www.change-management-consultant.com/force-field-analysis.html

Regarding stakeholder analysis, the following links will get you up to speed and they
also provide some templates to use.

A good diagram with examples of who existing stakeholders might be can be found
at http://saltlane.co.uk/Resources/stakeholder%20analysis.HTML

If you want an existing template to map the stakeholders that impact your ability to
develop your company culture, check out the one presented at
http://www.brighthubpm.com/templates-forms/3713-performing-a-stakeholder-
analysis/

For more info on exactly how stakeholders can impact your cultural development
check out the diagrams at
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newPPM_07.htm

In my opinion, a better version of the culture canvas might include space to capture
ideas about the desired culture + all the actors and practical factors working for and
against the necessary changes.

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I've made a quick and dirty mockup of a canvas which combines elements from the
two canvases I linked to above. You can check it out at
http://patricklauruol.com/culture-canvas-mockup.png

Regardless of which tools we use, I'd encourage everyone reading this blog to
consider for yourselves what a culture canvas should include. By the time you and
your team have discussed what should be included in the tool, you'll be fully versed
on how to use it and many of the issues that will come up will be the very issues that
would scupper a proper change initiative in the first place.

I'd love to see the direction Dave Gray and the Strategyzer team take the culture
map and will be following with interest. :)

Best regards,

Patrick Lauruol

3 years ago · 0 Likes

Once can design anything. However getting people to use it the way you designed
it, or maintain it the way you planned it, is a bit trickier.

I look at culture as layered networks with some kind of critical density around a
common thread. To understand the idea: First visualize networks of people, values,
skills, systems, practices, etc. like nets laid one on top of another. Then visualize a
single rope threaded through all the nets holding them together tightly or loosely.

Larry Cooper 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Culture is influenced and influences a multitude of other areas. I like the simplicity of
the canvas but would caution against it as being seen as anything more that one

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more technique/practice is what needs to be a very large tool box of

techniques/practices in modern organizations

Jeannette Seibly 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Culture is systemic. It's developed by the people within the organization -- changing
one person can change a culture. Questions to ask: Are the employees and
management aligned with and embracing the vision and mission of the company?
Do they have (or want) the freedom to design their culture? Are they willing to take
responsibility for communicating their expectations and respectfully listening to
others to build a new culture that works? Are they willing to do the work to generate
a new culture and understand its a process and not an event.

With over 71% (Gallup poll) in jobs that don't fit them, it starts with ensuring you
have the right people in the right job. When you have people excited by their work
each day, its a great place to work.

Drew Goodmanson 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Don't you think shared values should determine behaviors?

Dilek Brady 3 years ago · 0 Likes

I would go as far as saying we SHOULD design culture. Culture will evolve with or
without design, so influencing the shape it takes is not just an opportunity but also
crucial for an organisation.
I feel that in the first instance it is the responsibility of senior management to live by
the culture first and own the process of enabling and empowering (note: not
forcing!) staff to live and embed it into the fabric of the organisation.
This will require time and resources and takes vision and commitment in equal

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measure. If done well, it becomes part of a way of being rather than something that
requires continuous active thought by staff.
The Culture Map is a nice little tool allowing to create more conscious observation,
fine tuning and intentional action around required change.

We need more of this! Thanks a lot for sharing!

3 years ago · 0 Likes

It certainly seems like a useful tool to help you get a picture of how behaviours are
shaped by the environment (in terms of blockers and enablers). At this level I think it
would be useful to categorise these into the three broad categories BJ Fogg talks
about on behavioural science - personal, social and environmental. This will help you
identify interdependencies and develop the right strategies.

But I dont agree with ignoring values. It seems you are confusing values with
statements on posters. If you dont understand the fundamentals at the source of an
organisation - shared beliefs and values - any changes you make at the surface, will
be eroded or changed over time by the fundamentals, reverting back to what they
were before.

By engaging everyone in identifying, articulating and exploring values you get buy-in
for the changes you talk about. In fact the more I think about it, the more this
document seems to fit at a process and system level (with some beliefs identified
e.g. blocker to innovation 'the belief that decision making takes too long or failure is
unacceptable'). But it is not a way to address culture over the medium to long term
because it ignores the foundation underpinning it all - values.

BTW I do this sort of work a lot. For global businesses and fast-growing brands.

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Hilario Eric 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Absolutely !

Jim Sanderson 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Definitely. The Culture Map provides a template to articulate desired outcomes and
harmonize the behaviors needed to build and maintain a given culture. It also
provides an ongoing measure of performance by identifying "enablers" & "blockers".
As with any tool, the more it is used the better it serves its users. It takes
commitment and continuous effort to build and maintain a culture. I think Jim
Collins' idea of getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats is key to
designing and implementing a desired culture. Thanks for the tool. Should be a
great help to our organization and others who are "serious" about designing a great
culture.

arjen hemelaar 3 years ago · 0 Likes

It looks great, easy to use, clear with a focus on action. Still for met it would be great
to have a fourth field with the desired culture, in terms of values, behaviour,
anything. Can you please help me and explain how people know if the behaviour is
positive or negative. E.g. less failure is that positive or negative? Etc. Thanks a lot for
sharing. Arjen

Klaus Jacobsen 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Well, culture is something you live.

In a new company culture is developed by the persona's participating shaping its
future.

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I guess you can design a culture on paper, but the interesting part is how to
implement. Also in light of the turbulence a new company will experience and the
potential shift in strategies, business models and need for changing competencies.
I think ......
Best Klaus Jacobsen

Abdul Razak Manaf 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Culture evolves over time. It's one of those things that tend to sneak upon us. As
such, designing a company culture starts with the realisation and the acceptance by
the company leaders the reality that company culture can impact the company's
ability to achieve success.
As culture is shaped by values, a good starting point is for the leaders to clarify the
values of the organisation. Organisational values are strongly shaped by the
personal values of the owners and leaders.
I think the above basics need to be sorted before attempting to build a company
culture. For that, we need good processes, tools and techniques.
Culture can be designed but just as important is that culture needs to be managed
for it to be sustainable as culture is not permanent.

Jan Robert Johnsen 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Absolutely, but it can take time. The Culture Map is one valuable tool in the process.
In my previous job, we first built the arena to hold 40 people where the process
could start.

It was just a large meetingroom converted into a large livingroom - where we all
could be "outside the office" and more relaxed. The use of everyday household
objects, color and fabrics is highly underestimated...

We invited everyone to take part in designing the process itself, and it included

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profiling everyone - learning that we all have different characteristics that we need
to respect and embrace. We had talks about what different values mean to the
individual and the group - improving common understanding.

We also developed some "memes" - small visual models to improve communications

between individuals with different lingo, and to encourage storytelling - replacing
tech-talk. Then, we started designing culture we wanted – and we used a map
somewhat similar - after fiddling a lot :-)

Nelson Mincov 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Shure, I think this challenge starts in a low dose based, we suppose executives in
different levels should do what they talk; like a father or mother when teaches your
children, they realize incoherences so fast, like in the corporative world.

3 years ago · 0 Likes

I am curious. Does Holacracy works well in designing culture?

Anbazhagan S V 3 years ago · 0 Likes

yes, it can be very well and lastingly influenced. A Canadian company working as the
Consultant-Engineer for starting Asia's largest iron ore mining company influenced
the company during the project years and thereafter so admirably!

Richard Randolph 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Can we "design" culture? Of course we can – if we know what we're looking for and
follow the correct approach. Want proof? See what Zappos has done: Culture is

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Priority One - Tony Hsieh (Zappos) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4D3RplqmyU

And Zappos Company Culture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CcLIPaUz3E

And the provocative article, First, Let's Get Rid of All the Bosses –
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122965/can-billion-dollar-corporation-zappos-
be-self-organized

So in reality, the question is not "can we design culture?" It is "when will we start
intentionally designing and creating a positive and engaging culture for the kind of
people we want to deliver our products and services to our Customers.

Yann VERHOYE 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Using the design thinking methodology wtith a young company and/or team the
answer is obvously Yes, we can design the company'sculture..
More difficult is to re-design a culture of an existing company and/or team and
change management is only a part of the way to accomplish. We need new tools to
finalize. Let's try this one

Patrick Verdonk 3 years ago · 0 Likes

Yes I believe we can design culture - though I do not believe you can do it by only
applying this Culture Map. There's more to it. I'll try to capture those thoughts in a
blog post for early next week.

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