Society at present has become more diverse than ever. In response to this situation as well as changes in the public health agenda, the State intends to undertake an organizational cultural self-assessment. As the university has been selected to facilitate the self-assessment process, this researcher has prepared this paper to discuss several aspects of this project.
Cultural self-assessment
Planned activities
The key activities that this project will undertake are enumerated as follows:
Identity stakeholders. Project team need to map out the stakeholders. These would include the 1,500 members of the health department as well as the staff of the eight different regions. The list of stakeholders will dictate the number of group interviews, surveys, and other data-collection methods. The communities that the health organization is serving are also stakeholders of this project.
Develop self-assessment tool. There are already existing materials that can be used as references for the assessment tool that will be developed. Schein (2010) proposes a ten-step process to assess organization’s culture. The study of Olavarria, Beaulac, Bélanger, Young, & Aubry (2005) identified several self-assessment tools for community health and social service organizations. Included in these assessment tools are (a) Cultural Competence Self Assessment Protocol for Health Care Organizations and Systems (CCSAP) developed by Andrulis et al. 1998; (b) Cultural Competence Self-Assessment Questionnaire (CCSAQ) of Mason (1985); and (c) Cultural Competency Assessment Scale (CCAS) developed by Siegel, Haugland & Davis Chambers (2002). The self-assessment tool shall take into consideration the reasons for the assessment as well as the future plans of the organization.
Conduct self-assessment. Once the tool has been developed, the project team shall facilitate the conduct of the organization’s cultural self-assessment. At this point it is important that members of the organization are very much involved. Schein has emphasized the benefits of having group interviews because compared to individual interviews, the group can immediately provide a picture of the group dynamics and cultural interactions within the organization.
Preparation and validation of report. Project team shall undertake the necessary cleaning up of data, collation, analysis and preparation of the report. This document shall be presented and validated to the organization.
Use of the report to institutionalize changes. The project team may provide additional services in institutionalizing changes and this can be in the form of holding evaluation activities and focus-group discussions about the organization’s experience in the self-assessment process.
Leadership challenges
It is expected that taking the lead of this assessment process will present several challenges. The first challenge pertains to the diversity of the participants. There are 1,500 members I the state health department and there are eight different regions. These numbers alone show that there would be different kinds of personalities and although they belong to one state agency there would definitely be several subcultures within the general organizational culture.
Coordinating several teams of the project will be necessary. Since it is expected that there would simultaneous activities there would be issues related to logistics and resources.
As this is a cultural self-assessment this researcher will most likely encounter cultural issues. For example in identifying which cultural assumptions are beneficial and which need to be changed, it is expected that a lot of debates and discussion will take place.
Finally, as the leader of this project, this researcher is expected to be capable of making sure everything goes according to plan and the project is successfully completed according to set target. This pressure is the biggest challenge of all.
References
Homan, M.S. (2011). Promoting Community Change: Making it Happen in the Real World. USA: Cengage Learning.
Olavarria, M., Beaulac, J., Bélanger, A., Young, M. & Aubry, T. (2005). Organizational Cultural Competence: Self-Assessment Tools for Community Health and Social Service Organizations. Ottawa: Center for Community Services, University of Ottawa [online]. Available in
Schein, E.H. (2010). Culture assessment as part of managed organizational change. In Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Inc. pp.315-3328.
