Consistency

The CONSISTENCY trait looks at:

CORE VALUES – do we act in an ethical manner and do our values serve as a guide for our actions and the actions of our leaders;

AGREEMENT – our ability to confront difficult issues and work towards agreement in a way that incorporates diverse perspectives and strives for win-win solutions; and

COORDINATION & INTEGRATION – the degree to which people from different parts of the Organisation share a common perspective and are able to work effectively across organisational boundaries.

What does high performance look like in the CONSISTENCY domain?

Consistency is about ensuring people have a high level of cohesion, integration, or agreement around values and organisational norms. Consistency helps people perform well because they understand the organisational ‘rules’ and expectations about how work gets done. Behaviour is rooted in a set of core values, individuals are able to reach agreement through incorporating diverse perspectives and the organisation activities are well coordinated and integrated across functional structures. Consistency in the Denison model has three components and high performance in each may be described as:

CORE VALUES – There is a widely understood and shared a set of values, which creates a sense of identity and unity. The values provide staff with a clear set of expectations and consistent guidelines for appropriate behaviour and are deeply embedded into systems, processes and ways of working. ‘How’ things are done is equally important as ‘what’ things are done and behaviour that is inconsistent with the values (regardless of where it occurs) is actively managed.

AGREEMENT – There is the ability to reach agreement on critical issues. This includes both the underlying level of agreement and the ability to reconcile differences when they occur. Information sharing is promoted, and individuals/teams are rewarded and recognised for speaking up, presenting questions and participating in debate/discussions.

COORDINATION & INTEGRATION – Different functions and units of the organisation can work together effectively and efficiently to achieve common goals. Organisational boundaries do not interfere with getting work done and people recognise the impact their contribution may have on other parts of the organisation. Responsibility for problems is shared, rather than siloed in discrete areas.