The four types of digital culture

Digital strategies are helping charities across the UK achieve more with digital. But to deliver a successful digital strategy, charities need to build a strong digital culture: one that is capable of making the most of digital technologies for their cause.

 

The Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) is a classic tool developed by University of Michigan business professors Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn to help define and codify corporate cultures. This framework focuses on four easily-recognisable organisational cultures, which we explore below.

 

These four archetypes are of immense help to leaders looking to guide their organisation’s digital culture. Understanding your existing culture can help guide you towards the right processes, tools, and partners you will need to create greater change with digital. You can also identify potential organisational obstacles and build processes to overcome them. 

 

Let’s dive into the four kinds of company culture and find out how they can help charities achieve their biggest impact with digital.

 

 

Clan culture

 

The clan culture centres around a tight-knit team. Most common in small organisations, a team with a clan culture is like a family with loyalty, mentorship, and mutual support amongst the most valued traits.

 

How can clan cultures achieve more with digital?

 

One of the greatest strengths of a clan culture is an "all in this together" mentality. Among smaller teams, role-sharing and pitching-in to help with tasks beyond your immediate remit are common. Employees gain new skills as a result of having to learn on the job. This leads to a versatile workforce with a range of soft skills. 

 

All of this means that securing team buy-in is imperative. If you can explain to your team why a digital culture is important, then your close bonds will be your greatest asset as you manage change. If your team works together and takes shared ownership of digital transformation, you will be able to implement change throughout all levels of your organisation. 

 

With this in mind, it is best to introduce a digital culture not as a separate entity, but instead as part of a wider digital strategy: as a way of doing things. Focus your energy on outlining how digital can make day-to-day operations and individual tasks more efficient and help your charity to achieve its mission. Help employees to identify how they can transform their own roles and build from there. 

 

Your team has already bought into your mission. By explaining how digital transformation can help you achieve this mission you can get them to buy-in to a new digital culture.

 

 

Adhocracy culture

 

The adhocracy culture (derived from the term "ad hoc") is a dynamic, innovative, and forward-thinking environment in which people are prepared to take risks in order to discover something new. Prevalent within the tech start-up community, this kind of company culture is often touted as a progressive meritocracy, free from many of the constraints of more traditional company cultures.

 

How can adhocracy cultures achieve more with digital?

 

Organisations with this kind of culture will try anything once. And if it doesn’t work, they’ll be open to trying it again (with some tweaks). Unsurprisingly, given that they’re a product of the digital age, adhocracy cultures are well-suited to embracing digital transformation. And they’re not afraid of failure, which is good because failure is an important part of the process. 

 

An adhocracy culture will focus on the lessons learned, and won’t look at trying times as failure at all. It won’t be too difficult to sell teams with an adhocracy culture on digital transformation. Focus on it as an exciting opportunity to try new things and spread your wings. Your team will most likely want to contribute their own ideas. So let them.

 

This is one of the most important parts of change management: shared ownership of digital transformation. The surest way to make sure that everyone buys into change is to allow them to build their own set of principles to buy into.

 

These principles will work for your charity because they’ll have been created by your charity. This is incredibly valuable. Rather than an "out-of-the-box" approach to digital, you’ll have a strategy and culture geared towards your needs and built by your people. 

 

 

Market culture

 

The term "market culture" might conjure up an image of Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko decked out in all his 80s finery. While this corporate culture has some of its roots in another era, tech moguls have repurposed it for a new one. A market culture is a culture built around results. It is a competitive environment geared toward individual achievement.

 

How can market cultures achieve more with digital?

 

Market cultures need to emphasise the potential gains of digital technology to help teams get on board. A market culture’s results-oriented outlook means that leaders will be receptive to hearing about the increased efficiency and productivity that digital strategy can bring. Incentivising individual digital achievements could also help, as this culture is all about individual performance. 

 

However, be careful not to oversell. Any successful digital strategy will require learning from failure. You’ll need to manage expectations, and make it clear that this process of transformation will not be an instant success. Things will get messy. 

 

One of the challenges you might face is that of demonstrating the value of an investment. The key is to start small: run small tests, gather data, and use it to demonstrate return on investment (ROI).

 

You can scale up operations once you’ve proved your strategy works. Poor foundations lead to poor results. Good underlying systems take time to build and are the result of small, successful actions.

 

 

Hierarchy culture

 

Hierarchy culture is the most traditional of corporate cultures. Process and procedure are the key pillars here, as a top-down management structure ensures that everything is done by the book and to the letter.

 

Efficiency is prized in a hierarchy culture. Costs are kept low by adhering to rules and guidelines. These guidelines are a result of what has worked in the past, and are not easily challenged.

 

How can hierarchy cultures achieve more with digital?

 

You will face difficulty in implementing change with any organisation that has a hierarchy culture. You’ll need to secure buy-in from those at the top, proving to them the potential value of the project.

 

To do so, highlight potential savings and opportunities to maximise efficiency, Present your case as clearly, simply, and objectively as possible. 

 

Hierarchical organisations work by minimising risk, so demonstrate how your plans for digital change are the safest option. Highlight the risks of not implementing this process of change.

 

Accept that there will be challenges, but point to the success enjoyed by other organisations who have made similar changes. Establish that, whilst this transition will have a relatively high upfront cost, everything is geared towards making the most of resources in the long run.