CULTURE MAPPING EXERCISE

Directions: The below matrices present a number of cultural characteristics presented across a continuum.
Step 1: Review each cultural characteristic and place an A in the column that most closely represents your perception of the acquiring company's culture.
Step 2: Place a B in the column that most closely represents the acquired company's current culture.
Step 3: Calculate the absolute difference between each rating to determine the largest culture gaps.

STRATEGIC ORIENTATION	1	2	3	4	5
Customer/market-driven	Technology-driven
Long-term profit-oriented	Short-term profit-oriented
Employees understand and are committed to strategy	Employees don’t understand and/or are not committed to strategy
Activity-focused	Results-focused
Strategically-focused	Operationally or crisis-focused
Fast follower regarding product instruction	Cutting-edge products
Slow to respond to market dynamics	Flexible, highly market responsive
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

COMMUNICATION	1	2	3	4	5
Top-down focus	Three-way
Infrequent sensing	Frequent sensing
Filtered	Open / candid
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT	1	2	3	4	5
Considerable opportunity for employee development	Limited opportunity for employee development
Development is based on informal mechanisms with large degrees of latitude	Development is tightly aligned with competency model or career ladder
Development focuses on current job	Development focuses on current and future jobs
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

REWARDS	1	2	3	4	5
Focus on rewarding individual performance	Balance of individual and team performance rewards
Employees have minimum involvement in setting performance expectations	Employees have significant involvement in setting performance specifications
Seniority-based	Performance-based
Clear performance standards	Ambiguous performance standards
Compensation at/above market	Compensation below market
Employees receive regular performance feedback	Employees don’t receive regular performance feedback
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

DECISION MAKING	1	2	3	4	5
Slow	Fast
Centralized decision making/multiple approval levels	Few approval levels and broad spans of control
Analytical/cautious	Intuitive/daring
Authority levels are clearly understood	Confusion exists regarding authority levels
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

RISK TAKING	1	2	3	4	5
Risk averse	Calculated risk taking encouraged
Mistakes are punished	Innovation is rewarded
Management does not solicit or act on employee ideas for improvement	Management encourages and quickly acts on employee ideas for improvement
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

PLANNING	1	2	3	4	5
Short term	Long term
Reactive	Proactive
Informal	Formal
Intuitive about competition	Constantly monitor competition
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

TEAMWORK	1	2	3	4	5
Low cooperation across departments	High cooperation across departments
Low trust	High trust
Siloed perspective	Process/cross-functional perspective
Conflict is surfaced and resolved	Culture is polite and conflict is avoided
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

MANAGEMENT PRACTICES	1	2	3	4	5
Leaders are hard drivers	Leaders are paternalistic
Policies are applied uniformly	Policies are applied arbitrarily
High levels of feedback and coaching	Infrequent or no feedback and coaching
Few unnecessary procedures, policies, and business rules	Procedures, policies, and business rules used to guide employee behavior
Cost and control-driven	Service and quality-driven
People feel appreciated and valued	People don’t feel appreciated and valued
Low stress/burnout environment	High workload/long work hours environment
Workforce embraces change	Workforce strives to maintain status quo
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

STRUCTURE	1	2	3	4	5
Roles clearly understood	Considerable role ambiguity
Organization is flat	Organization has many layers
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

TECHNOLOGY	1	2	3	4	5
Employees have access to the information they need to be successful	Information is either lacking, untimely, or incorrect
Slow adoption to new technology	Rapid adoption or state-of-the-art technology used
ABSOLUTE DIFFERENCE

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