Assessing climate with the SOQ
Overview
The Situational Outlook Questionnaire® (SOQ) is an assessment instrument that examines the psychological aspects of the work environment – more commonly referred to as atmosphere or ‘climate’. In a way, the SOQ helps us make the invisible more visible.
Climate is connected to ‘culture’, but it is not the same as culture. Culture is difficult to change, whereas climate is far more definable, measurable and readily changeable. Climate refers to the everyday patterns of behaviour that characterise life in a defined work area. Culture concerns the values and beliefs that reflect the deeper foundations of the organisation.
Climate versus culture
The two terms culture and climate are often used interchangeably however, the following three distinctions are useful to anyone interested in change, innovation, productivity or just creating a great place to work.
Culture is a broader concept which requires looking at the entire organisation. Focusing on climate is much more localised and therefore you can use individuals and their perceptions of a group or division or other units of analysis. Climate is situational.
Culture tends to be relatively descriptive, meaning that one culture and its attendant assumptions and values are no better or worse than another. Climate is more normative, meaning that we are looking for environments that are better for certain things. Climate is measurable.
Climate is distinct from culture in that it is more easily observable and more amenable to improvement efforts. Climate is changeable.
Climate is a set of dimensions that can be directly and deliberately influenced.
The nine dimensions of climate
The nine dimensions of a healthy or unhealthy working environment are:
Challenge and Involvement: The degree to which people are involved in daily operations, long-term goals and visions.
Freedom: The independence in behaviour exerted by the people in the organisation.
Trust and Openness: The emotional safety in relationships.
Idea-Time: The amount of time people can (and do) use for elaborating new ideas.
Playfulness and Humour: The spontaneity and ease displayed in the workplace.
Conflict: The presence of personal tensions in the organisation.
Idea-Support: The ways new ideas are treated.
Debate: The occurrence of encounters and disagreements between viewpoints, ideas, experiences and knowledge.
Risk-Taking: The tolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity in the workplace.
Uses of the SOQ
The SOQ is typically used in three ways:
Leadership development: As a 360-leadership development tool, leaders complete the SOQ rating the climate around them. Then five to twenty observers complete the SOQ rating the climate as they see it. Leaders can then examine the gaps in perception and develop steps to improve.
Team development: Research shows that the difference in climate scores between the best and worst teams is striking (for example, in the best teams, ‘Trust and Openness’ is three times higher than in the worst teams), so the SOQ can help greatly by identifying areas that need to be addressed for a team to be more productive.
Organisational development: Climate has been shown to influence many economic and social factors such as creativity, quality, return on capital employed (ROCE), employee engagement, innovation and change. The organisational use of the SOQ provides results that help inform where to target precious resources for maximum return.
Validity and reliability of the SOQ
Any safe assessment needs sound psychometric properties of reliability and validity. In general, an instrument is reliable when it measures what it is supposed to measure and it's valid when it accurately predicts performance. The gold standard for the evaluation of assessments is The Buros Center for Testing and their summary of the SOQ is as follows:
‘They make a strong argument for the effect of organisational climate on change, creativity and innovation. The developers of the SOQ provide a solid foundation for the theory, nature and context for change, including a useful distinction between climate and culture. The history for the identification of dimensions and items for the SOQ are supported by more than adequate attention to reliability, validity and related analysis.’ Buros concludes: ‘Fifty years of documented research and development provide a level of confidence for both qualified practitioners and their clients. The SOQ is recommended for its intended purposes.’
Deliverables from an SOQ assessment
The SOQ has two parts. Part A contains 53 questions that provide scores on the nine climate dimensions. The scores represent people’s perceptions of the extent to which the behaviours described by the dimensions are present in the climate.
Results from part A include:
Scores on the nine dimensions including means, standard deviations and ranges for each group assessed.
Climate scores can also be compared to other organisations, our normative data (see the table and chart below), or any previous data collected (e.g. within your organisation).
SOQ SCORES TABLE FOR INNOVATIVE, AVERAGE AND STAGNATED ORGANISATIONS
SOQ RESULTS CHART FOR INNOVATIVE, AVERAGE & STAGNATED ORGANISATIONS
The optional Part B contains three short questions that provide an opportunity to elaborate on perceptions of the climate. They are asked to identify specific factors in the environment which help or hinder, and what might be done to improve the climate. The participants’ responses are provided in a report and can be used in the presentation of SOQ results. Participants’ confidentiality is protected.
There are many other options available such as analysing Part B data to look for themes, comparing people’s perceptions of the climate with a variety of other factors such as their orientation to creativity (VIEW), their perceptions of the creative products they produce, and the leadership practices observed. Sample SOQ reports are available from Perspectiv on request.
Considerations and costs
There are a number of aspects to consider with an SOQ climate assessment and typically each application is customised to needs. However, to give an indication:
A team or organisational SOQ assessment costs approximately £50 per person
A leader application is approximately £300 per leader
For applications that require a large number of participants there are volume discounts available for the quantitative analysis (Part A)
The qualitative analysis (Part B) of the SOQ is in addition and costs approximately £20 per person
Typically, an additional 2-3 days consultancy is required to lead the process, which is billed at Perspectiv’s standard rates for Partner / Associate Partner.
Visit our toolkit to find out more about the SOQ.
If you have questions about the SOQ or about improving your organisational climate, please contact us.