Excellence to Eminence

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How We’ll Get There

Moving from excellence to eminence is a journey, and it will take time. To transform our culture to one characterized as healthy and high-performing, we use a change management model, abbreviated as DURAM*:

Diagnosis & Definition

To move the University from excellence to eminence, we must understand where we are today. In 2008, faculty and staff participated in several Ohio State culture surveys to find the baseline upon which we can make improvements. The surveys' findings helped identify the areas that needed focus to advance University-wide goals. The surveys will be administered again in early 2011; shifts in responses between the 2008 surveys and the 2011 Faculty and Staff Surveys will measure progress on culture transformation efforts.

Unfreezing

In the next phase, faculty and staff explore thinking and behaviors that are unconscious habits, i.e. frozen, and learn behaviors that contribute to a high performance culture. We do this in many ways, including communications, coaching and feedback, and culture retreats.

Reinforcement

After learning about our values and the behaviors that support our values, it's important to ensure the concepts "stick." To create a high-performing environment, it's important to reinforce our values and the tools and mindsets covered in the retreat, and recognize those who are practicing those behaviors.

  • Look at ways other areas across the university are reinforcing high-performing behaviors, and think about how you could use the same or a similar approach.
  • Here are reinforcement ideas Culture Strategists are successfully using in their colleges/units.
  • Look at these best practices developed by the Reinforcement & Recognition Culture Action Team for additional ideas.

Application

In this phase, our values move from "in place" to "in use." We see changes in individual behaviors and team results. We also see changes to align our systems and processes with our values: some areas already changed include:

Measuring Progress

Measurement creates accountability. It also helps us identify successes and challenges. The charge to the Measurement Culture Action team is to measure the shift in culture, creating a link between the culture transformation and the university’s strategic goals. Desired outcomes of this work include:

  • Assessing values at the individual, team and University levels: We will ask faculty and staff to complete the 2011 Faculty and Staff Surveys to measure satisfaction. Results will help leaders continue creating a healthy, high-performing environment. Shifts in responses from the 2008 surveys will measure progress on culture transformation efforts. Also, the Culture Pulse Survey diagnoses the current state and measures improvement at the college/unit level.
  • Identifying, setting and tracking university metrics that will be positively affected by the culture transformation: A Scorecard is under development to measure University metrics.

© 2004-2010 Senn-Delaney Leadership Consulting Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

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E. Gordon Gee on a broader agenda for change:

“We have to return to the founding land-grant principles but in the 21st century model, which is to partner with our communities. We must take a leadership role, think differently about how we work with business and industry, and assume the responsibility of changing lives and changing minds. All of this ties very much together. It is not simply about creating one university in the way we operate and think and function. It is about creating the university as a leadership model of the wider world.”

Excellence to Eminence.
We are The Ohio State University.