The first challenge is to determine what sort of culture is required, for example:

1. "task support norms" having to do with information sharing, helping other groups and concern with efficiency, such as "support the work of other groups" versus "put down the work of other groups"

2. "task innovation norms", which stress creativity, such as "always try to improve" versus "don't rock the boat"

3. "social relationship norms" for socialising with one's work group and mixing friendship with business, such as "get to know the people in your work group" versus "don't bother"

4. "personal freedom norms" for self-expression, exercising discretion and pleasing oneself, such as "live for yourself and your family" versus "live for your job and career".

With a better understanding of what culture is being sort a survey technique can be developed for measuring the cultural gap to determine where cultural change initiatives would bring benefit. The survey should select those norm pairs that will help gather the necessary cultural change evidence.

An example of a norm pair is:

a) share information only when it benefits your own work group versus,

b) share information to help the organisation make better decisions.

Every employee consulted chooses either a) or b) for each norm pair in two ways: first, according to the pressures the work group puts on its members (actual norms); and second, according to which norms should be operating in order to promote high performance and morale (desired norms).

The difference between the actual norms and the desired norms represent the culture gaps and the contrast can be immense. Culture gaps can be surveyed in a work group, department, a division or an entire organisation. By calculating the difference between the norms that are actually in force and those that should be, the culture-gap scores are obtained and cultural change initiatives identified. The larger the gap, the greater the likelihood that the current norms are hindering both morale and performance. If the assessed culture gaps are allowed to continue, work groups are likely to resist any attempt at cultural change and improvement. Specifically, culture gaps materialise as an unwillingness to adopt new work methods and innovations, as a lack of support for programs to improve quality and productivity, as lip service when changes in strategic directions are announced and, in the extreme, as efforts to maintain the status quo at all costs.

The use of surveys have revealed distinct patterns of culture gaps. For example, in some of the high-technology firms, lack of cooperation and information sharing across groups has resulted in large culture gaps in task support. In the automotive and steel industries, not rewarding creativity and innovation has resulted in large culture gaps in task innovation. In some social-service agencies in which work loads can vary greatly, large cultural gaps in social relationships are found, indicating that too much time is spent socialising rather than looking to get the next job done. Finally, in extremely bureaucratic organisations, such as some banks and government agencies, large cultural gaps in personal freedom are evident. Here, workers' sense of being overly confined and constrained lowers their performance and morale.

The most general finding to date is the presence of large cultural gaps in task innovation. It seems that industry is plagued by significant differences between actual and desired norms - a condition that may relate directly to the frequently mentioned productivity problem. An industrial culture that pushes for short-term financial results is bound to foster norms that work against efforts at long-term improvement, regardless of what formal documents and publicity statements seem to advocate.

Do all employees of the organisation see the same culture gaps? Apparently not!

The smallest cultural gaps are found at the top of the organisation's hierarchy. Managers believe their own publicity; they say that they reward creativity and innovation but seem to forget that their actions speak louder than their words. By contrast, cultural gaps are largest at the bottom of the hierarchy, where the gaps also reveal alienation and distrust.

Here a common norm is: Don't trust management. In essence, workers see management as being up to no good, getting caught up in fads to fool and manipulate employees or thinking that the workers are too stupid to see what's behind management's latest whim.