Culture & Excellence
From One Snapshot to a Culture You Can Steer.
A single picture tells you where you stand. A sequence of pictures tells you where you are going. Culture Code is designed to grow with you: from a first pilot in one area, to the whole organisation, to follow-up measurements with the same questions that show what has taken root since.
And if you are working with the EFQM Model, Culture Code adds something every self-assessment benefits from: the voice of your people.
Culture Code and the EFQM Model.
Established in 1989, the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) provides one of the most widely used management frameworks in Europe. Its model is built on three pillars: Direction, Execution and Results – and within Direction, it gives Organisational Culture & Leadership a criterion of its own.
This is exactly where Culture Code contributes. Many organisations can describe their intended culture in detail; evidencing how it is lived is far harder. Culture Code supplies that evidence – broad, anonymous and in your people’s own words:
- Direction: showing how far your purpose and values are reflected in daily behaviour.
- Execution: revealing how your people experience collaboration, decisions and change.
- Results: making cultural development visible over time through repeat measurements.
The Path
Every Culture Code project follows a clear sequence – designed so that insights do not stay on paper, but find their way into everyday life.
The Conversation – Purpose & Scope
We start by clarifying what you want to find out and why. Which part of the organisation should be included? What decisions should the results support?
The Planting Plan – Your Stated Culture
We gather your mission, values, leadership principles, code of conduct and external communication – each statement with its source. Only what you approve becomes part of the standard against which everyday culture is compared.
Approval – Transparency First
All questions are shared word for word with the approving bodies, including your works council. Nobody is asked anything that has not been seen and agreed in advance.
The Soil Sample – Listening at Scale
Employees take part in the anonymous AI interviews – on their own phone, at a time that suits them.
The Garden Report – What Grows Where
You receive the full picture: Roots, New Shoots, Wildflowers, Bare Patches, Overgrowth, Unchecked Growth and Weeds – across the organisation and in each of its beds.
The Debrief – A Shared Picture
We discuss the findings in depth with your key stakeholders and agree next steps you can check: what you will observe, by when, and how you will recognise change.
Fertiliser & Follow-up – Optional
Concrete recommendations, each one individually reviewed; an EFQM-oriented gap analysis; and a repeat measurement with identical questions that shows how your garden has developed.
Start With One Bed.
You do not need to begin with the whole organisation. A pilot in a single site or unit shows what Culture Code can reveal – with manageable effort and a clear result. In the pilot, an experienced organisational diagnostician also analyses the same answers independently, and both readings are brought together at the end. Particularly valuable at moments of change – rapid growth, new sites, succession, mergers or restructuring – when it matters most to know which roots must be protected.
