Research
The Culture Intelligence framework has been developed from published academic research and models with integration of experience in using values in consultancy for 20 years. The values mapping, customisations and report design in Culture Intelligence platform are initially crafted on the Hall Tonna values system model.
Building on insights from the academic world
From Clare Graves in the 50’s as the first researcher to publish values measurements, to Carol Dwecks mindset models and Torberts research and Barretts global center, there are multiple input, applications and experiences in the field of culture. Many researchers have been considered, and many of the models are applied in one aspect or the other.
The precision and system approach of Hall Tonna (HT) have provided a foundation for values-driven business development. In the process of applying the HT model, we did extensive process innovation, report design, manual visualisation, and analytics. Our Culturengine database includes more than 1000 unique individual leaders, 50+ leadership teams, and more than 20 small businesses with all employees involved.
Our research suggests that individuals in organisations operate with 100 values. This number came from experience with the values from Hall Tonna map relevant to business. In the 15 years of applications, there were clearly values in the HT system that leaders very rarely prioritised. There were also values missing in the HT system, values that were talked about in the values processes and requested by the participants.
In our model there are 70% values directly from HT. While being highly inspired and supported by Brian Hall and his values mastery and support, we have also recognized the importance of other research in this arena and adapted our own evidence based methodology and model accordingly. The levels along which ‘development’ in the CI model takes place follow the same logic as the Hall-Tonna model with some exceptions:
- The number of levels is seven, not eight, like the Barrett, LaLoux and Hall -Tonna leadership styles.
- The values in our model do not categorise in goals and means values
- Hall-Tonna differentiate between personal and organisational values, we see this differently; we don’t believe that organisations have specific goals and means values; people have them and therefore all values are personal on our approach.
- Unlike Hall-Tonna, we have not applied the personal middle “dot” as a maturity step from the HT model. This part is solved in our model through visualizing the spread of the preferred mindset. Our practice has taught us that people have a spread of mindsets and our model reflects this – we illustrate both where their focus goes, and how their energy is divided. The maturity of any organisation is hereby identified with the weight on the mindset towards the right of the map, but the entire spread need to be considered.
No doubt that Hall Tonna through Brian and Elva Hall have been instrumental in the model thinking. The need to search wider led to other models and values. The great work of Richard Barrett has provided a useful and commercial inspiration on how reporting can be made to increase customer understanding of the stage concept and also to the distribution of energy.
Torbert’s published model of seven leadership levels and the vertical development model has been helpful. The interesting Spiral dynamics from Beck and Cowen has confirmed the stage development impact. The use of Memes from Memetix and Memetor has provided relevance to the link between values and actions.
The interesting approach from Ken Wilber has shown a further area of exploration between the values work and the integral work. In addition, all customer feedback has been fed back to the design board to be innovations for new processes in application or new design of data.
Between business segments and brands, there are different market challenges and business operation is consequently different. In the core of strategy and leadership there are similarities of needs, processes and ambitions. We have learned that experiences from one leadership team can be transferred to another and create value. That means Culture Intelligence is usable and results are transferrable from business to business.
While competence is what people know, culture is about how competence is shared and expanded to build new knowledge. We help businesses become more effective through a data-driven approach to culture.