Viewing vs. understanding
By Kim Jong-nam
Spring is the season when plants begin to grow. Organizations are the same. Many of them begin thinking about how to grow by examining their current statuses through diagnoses ― in particular, cultural diagnoses.
However, if they don't have the proper perspectives, they will not be able to grow correctly. Thus, looking at the current reality is more important than worrying about growth, which, after all, will follow naturally through understanding this current reality. The coronavirus crisis is a good analogy for how crucial this is.
In organizations, some salaried CEOs tend to avoid diagnoses because they are afraid of the consequences for them. This is similar to how many people think that the Japanese government does not want to administer proper tests due to their concern about the published numbers having a negative impact on the Tokyo Olympics.
Furthermore, if people are afraid of negative results, this may lead to less-accurate diagnoses even when they finally do undergo them, just as a country's reporting a low number of infected people actually may mean that their test is not trustworthy. An accurate diagnosis can happen only when we are fully prepared to face the real picture.
However, even when organizations are open to conducting accurate diagnoses, it is also important to ensure that diagnoses are sufficiently thorough. Sample size matters, and a small sample size may skew the results. The numbers of infected people in Daegu and in North Gyeongsang Province seem incomparably high, but in reality, they have not yet been contextualized because other locations have not been tested as thoroughly.
Similarly, zooming in on one department, age group, or any other group that stands out, without looking at the larger picture, will also lead to an inaccurate interpretation of diagnostic results and will cause people to overlook other problems that may be bigger. This is why we should strive for balanced and representative samples. We are sometimes reassured by large sample sizes and neglect to investigate whether the sample itself is truly representative.
Another reason why we should ensure that diagnoses are thorough is because when they are not done properly they will affect employees' future attitudes toward diagnosis in general. A poorly conducted diagnosis will cause employees to lose motivation to provide accurate and helpful information on the next diagnosis. Thus, HR, or the organizational culture department, must prove that the diagnosis will be trustworthy and meaningful. Furthermore, it is important not to promise too much: if employees are made to believe that big changes will come after a diagnosis, they will give stronger (and therefore less accurate) results that ensure that these changes happen.
Analyzing whether employees have any cause not to have taken the diagnosis as seriously as they could have should therefore also be part of any thorough diagnosis. It is important to look at reality as it is, not as employees, executives, or diagnosticians desire.
Another point that we need to remember is that responses to diagnoses are greatly affected by our expectations and perspectives. Many Koreans have a high level of pride in the country's wealth, technology and education. Because their expectations are accordingly high, Koreans are upset that Korea has the one of the highest numbers of infected people in the world. This means that Koreans may be overly severe in blaming themselves and the country.
Similarly, cultural diagnosis in an organization is also reflective of existing expectations about the organization. For example, younger employees who have just begun their careers may give very low scores when they realize that their new company is different from what they believed it to be. They may also, because of their lack of experience, mistakenly think that their company is relatively worse compared to other companies in the same industry, even if this is not in fact the case. What is more worrisome is that this phenomenon can lead people to give negative scores to unrelated items too: they are driven by their emotion to give lower scores overall.
There are many other important things to consider when conducting a diagnosis, such as specifically what to diagnose, whether the speed of diagnosis matters, and the emotional climate of the organization. All of this affects the accuracy of the diagnosis as well as how it will be received. We tend to believe that measuring something will automatically give us a true image of current realities. However, viewing something and understanding it accurately are two different things.
Kim Jong-nam is the founding CEO of META (www.imeta.co.kr) and the author of three books on organizational culture and leadership. He works as an organizational development consultant globally. He has an office in Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as in Seoul.