Creative climate

Context, climate and culture are crucial factors to consider when implementing strategic change and transformation at an organizational level. There are three major reasons for considering climate as a relevant weapon below:

1. Climate is a key factor in helping organizations manage change: those organizations that deliberately manage their climates improve their bottom-line results. They have higher success rates for new product introductions, decreased time to market, positively influence adaptability and proactivity (Isaksen and Tidd, 2006).

2. Climate is a key factor promoting improved business performance: in  more than 500 companies it has been demonstrated that the top performing and profitable organizations are not leaving their climate or working atmosphere to chance. These organizatons are inclusive and their managers deliberately focus on creating a climate that engages its workforce towards new challenges and standards.

3. Climate is key to well-being in the workplace: the Gallup research data (2002) indicate that workplaces with engaged employees, on average, do a better job of keeping employees, satisfying customers, and being productive. Workplace well-being and performance are not independent...

Deliberate climate creation is the main responsibility of leadership within any organization; all leaders are anyway creating a climate, wether they do deliberately or not. 

We help leader to create and develop supportive climates to change in their team/organizations.

In doing this, we use a unique concept and tool which has been generated by the Creative Problem Solving Group:

        The Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ).

Do you want to check your team readiness to change? Do you want to accelerate processes and change attitude in your work environment, so as to achieve superior targets??

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SOQ (Situational Outlook Questionnaire) is the unique tool which enables us to measure Creative Climate's "magic formula" (9 dimensions).

SOQ is the valuable result of research which has been carried out in many years of research by Scott Isaksen and his Creative Problem Solving Group in Buffalo, US.

SOQ has more than adequate evidence of reliability and validity (Isaksen, 2007) and has been applied in many different organizations all around the world. More recently, SOQ has been validated by Decathlon Consulting into Italian, showing that the model and the tool are to consistent across-cultures and contexts. 

We are among the few consultancy having the knowledge of the model and a wide experience in the application of the tool (SOQ).

We have always got something special from groups and teams when applying the SOQ for deveoping highly creative and performing dynamics and results.

The Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ) measures the climate for creativity, high-performance and change on nine dimensions.

    The 9 dimensions of climate measured by the SOQ are:

1. Challenge /Involvement: the extent to which individual and team are given opportunities to get involved in the daily operations and long-term vision/goals.

2. Freedom: the degree that people can take initiative or perceive to be enabled to act without constantly referring to higher authorities or "rule books" for decisions.

3. Trust: the degree of emotional safety in relationships, the extent to which people are genuinely frank and open with each other in the spirit of constructive interpersonal rapports.

4. Idea-Time: the time people take to generate new ideas or consider the merits of existing ideas/opportunities/projects.

5. Plyfulness/Humor: the amount of spontaneity and levity displayed within the group/organization by people.

6. Conflict: the presence of personal tension and emotional tensions. The level of interpersonal "war-fare" where plots, traps and obstructionism are usual ingredients of interacting.

7. Idea-Support: the ways new ideas are considered, taken up or advocated. In the supportive cimate people are attentive listening and encouraging initiatives.

8. Debate: the occurence of encounters and disagreements between viewpoints and differing experiences and knowledge. The idea-tension.

9. Risk-Taking: the degree to which people can tolerate ambiguity and make decisions with some uncertainty.

All these dimensions are positively associated with creativity, performance and change except Conflict.

Measuring Climate with the SOQ allow us to position a group/organizaton on each of these dimensions along the Stagnation-Change Continuum.

Results can be considered and compared against a benchmark of international companies.

The power behind SOQ is that dimensions it measures have been validated against measures of organizational capacity to change, those organizations that have shown to be able at developing products and services and at commercialize successfully in a dynamic and competitive arena.

What happens after people get and understand thei results from the SOQ?

In the best-case situation, which is the way we suggest and support, who receive the results should focus on what is working well, what needs to be changed, and then have some actions (individual and team level) forward.

It does not exist the ideal climate: results from the SOQ have to be (discussedand) put in the team/organization background context and strategic perspective.

This is true for leaders who are responsible for larger divisions or those who are leading teams and interested to develop leadership skills together with group performance.

The Climate Picture coming out from SOQ results enables leaders to:

• Identify issues and get a better undestanding of team dynamics;
• Share priorities to change among the nine dimensions focus on concrete solutions in order to remove obstacles;
• Adapt personal style and tune behaviors with the group situations to consolidate credibility and group readiness to change.

Working with the SOQ means to find the "formula" and the way to interpersonal well-being and team performance.

"No one cn whistle a symphony; it takes an orchestra to play it!!!" (H.E.Luccock)