OCAI learning
OCAI and the Competing Values Framework
A practical explanation for participants, facilitators, and teams that want to understand their current and desired culture together.
Model overview
What is OCAI?
OCAI stands for Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument. It uses the Competing Values Framework to make visible which culture patterns people experience and which culture they see as desirable for the future.
OCAI is not a personality assessment. It does not label people; it helps a team discuss shared patterns in work, leadership, decision making, and success.
Use OCAI as a conversation starter: results are signals to explore together, not a judgement of good or bad.
The two tensions
The two dimensions
Flexibility versus stability
The top of the model emphasizes adaptability, freedom, and renewal. The bottom emphasizes predictability, control, continuity, and reliable execution.
Internal versus external focus
The left side looks mainly at people, collaboration, cohesion, and internal development. The right side focuses more on customers, markets, performance, innovation, and external positioning.
The four culture types
Clan culture
A people-oriented culture focused on collaboration, involvement, trust, and development.
- Leadership
- Leaders often act as coaches, mentors, or connectors.
- Strengths
- High commitment, psychological safety, knowledge sharing, and mutual support.
- Risks
- Decisions can become slow; harmony can become more important than clear choices.
- Decision making
- Preferably participative, with space for consensus and buy-in.
- Communication
- Open, relational, informal, and focused on alignment.
- Success means
- Success means committed people, development, trust, and sustainable collaboration.
Adhocracy culture
An innovative culture focused on experimentation, entrepreneurship, creativity, and opportunity.
- Leadership
- Leaders are often innovators, entrepreneurs, or pioneering direction setters.
- Strengths
- Innovation power, learning speed, adaptability, and future orientation.
- Risks
- Many initiatives can create fragmentation, ambiguity, or weak follow-through.
- Decision making
- Often fast and experimental: try, learn, and adjust.
- Communication
- Energetic, idea-driven, exploratory, and focused on possibilities.
- Success means
- Success means new solutions, growth, renewal, and using opportunities.
Market culture
A result-oriented culture focused on goals, customers, competitiveness, and performance.
- Leadership
- Leaders are often goal-oriented, businesslike, demanding, and competitive.
- Strengths
- Focus, pace, clear priorities, customer orientation, and measurable performance.
- Risks
- Too much pressure can undermine collaboration, learning, or long-term health.
- Decision making
- Decisions are often based on goals, data, impact, and urgency.
- Communication
- Direct, sharp, result-oriented, and focused on progress.
- Success means
- Success means reaching goals, winning customers, strengthening market position, and delivering results.
Hierarchy culture
A structured culture focused on stability, procedures, roles, and reliability.
- Leadership
- Leaders coordinate, organize, monitor quality, and create predictability.
- Strengths
- Reliability, scalability, clear agreements, quality, and risk control.
- Risks
- Rules can become more important than purpose; change can become slow.
- Decision making
- Decisions often follow formal roles, processes, policies, and careful consideration.
- Communication
- Ordered, precise, documented, and focused on clarity.
- Success means
- Success means efficiency, quality, continuity, control, and predictable delivery.
The OCAI assessment
Six dimensions
OCAI looks at dominant characteristics, leadership, management style, organizational glue, strategic emphases, and criteria of success.
Distribute 100 points
For each dimension, a participant distributes exactly 100 points across four statements. More points means: this statement fits more strongly.
IST: current culture
IST describes how participants experience the culture today. It helps make patterns visible before jumping to solutions.
SOLL: desired culture
SOLL describes which culture participants see as desirable for the coming period. The difference with IST forms the basis for dialogue.
Example distribution
Always exactly 100 points per dimension.
Example radar
Reading the radar chart
Profile shape
The radar shows the average score per culture type. A peak points to a stronger experienced culture pattern.
Large differences
When SOLL clearly differs from IST, there is change energy or tension. Discuss why that movement feels necessary.
Balanced profiles
A balanced profile does not automatically mean everything is fine. Look at context, strategy, and where the team gets stuck.
Dominant culture
The highest score is a dominant signal. Use it as a hypothesis: does this pattern still help us, or does it hold us back?
Interpreting results
Strengths
Every culture brings useful qualities. Start with what the current profile makes possible before discussing change.
Tensions
Culture types can collide: flexibility with control, people orientation with performance pressure, innovation with reliability.
Gaps
A gap between IST and SOLL shows where people want more or less emphasis. Not every gap needs to be solved immediately.
Alignment
Look whether participants share a similar picture. Strong agreement makes choices easier; difference calls for more dialogue.
Diversity
Spread in answers can be valuable. Different perspectives help reveal subcultures or role differences.
Action
Translate insights into a few concrete behaviors, working agreements, or experiments. Culture changes through daily choices.
Workshop conversation
Discuss safely and constructively
- Do not call any culture good or bad; ask which pattern is functional for the work now.
- Connect interpretation to context: strategy, customer demand, maturity, risk, and change challenge.
- Ask participants for examples of behavior that explain the profile.
- Use differences between IST and SOLL to choose priorities, not to assign blame.
- Make culture change small: which behavior do we want to see more or less often next week?
Choosing a model
Comparison with Schneider Core Culture
OCAI and Schneider both use four culture images and quadrant logic, but they emphasize different things. The mapping below is approximate, not exact.
| Topic | OCAI | Schneider |
|---|---|---|
| Clan ↔ Collaboration | Collaboration, involvement, and trust. | Collaboration, connectedness, and shared alignment. |
| Adhocracy ↔ Cultivation | Innovation, creativity, and using opportunities. | Growth, development, learning, and possibility. |
| Market ↔ Competence | Results, competition, customers, and goals. | Expertise, performance, distinction, and capability. |
| Hierarchy ↔ Control | Structure, stability, procedures, and reliability. | Order, certainty, control, and predictability. |
| When to use OCAI | Strong for organization-wide culture diagnosis and IST/SOLL dialogue. | Use Schneider when you want to work with Core Culture language and quadrant positions. |
Facilitator hint
Use the page as shared language
Project this explanation before the questionnaire or during results. Keep the explanation short, then let the team name examples, tensions, and desired movements.