Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument — Examining the Competing Values within the CIA
(OCAI — © 1999 Kim S. Cameron)
All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. Government. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.
In 2023, I came across OCAI through the Society for Business Ethics (SBE) conference. I had submitted my paper on the military hierarchy experience to SBE and was welcomed to present as a “junior scholar” at the conference. I flew to Boston and had a great time connecting with other junior scholars and also the senior scholars, who had created this mentor/support program to help solidify new academic’s feeling of membership in the organization. My colleagues and I were a mix of PhD students and new professors in leadership, business, and ethics realms. While it was fantastic to connect over our passions, one of the most exciting parts of the welcome for the junior scholars was that on the last day of the event, we were granted access to the conference bookstore, where we were allowed to pick up any of the remaining books for sale, for free. It was like giving undergraduates access to a free and unlimited meal card. We left super satisfied, with now heavy suitcases full of books and limited damage to our credit cards.
I returned from a taste of the fast paced Boston culture to San Diego. I began flipping through my new books, looking for ethics and organizational frameworks that would help me make sense of the data I had just collected via ten hour+ interviews with former senior level Central Intelligence Agency officers. The former officers had agreed to participate in my study that would encompass my dissertation on ethical leadership perspectives in one very ethical ambiguous organization, the CIA.
First, I enjoyed reading Joanne Cuilla’s book, The Search for Ethics in Business, Leadership, and Beyond. Dr. Cuilla was my assigned mentor at SBE and it was great to read and hear her voice and perspective. Her style of conversational, which was something I needed to absorb as well, maybe not for the dissertation, but for the coming book that would require my voice again, rather than the distant, neutral academic voice.
I then explored Springer’s Leadership and Business Ethics, where I came across OCAI in an article by Daryl Koehn (2022). He fully explained the cultures and then added ethical and leadership insights related to each culture’s preferences.
Summary of the Reflection
Overall, the CIA had a blend of all of the outlined OCAI cultures, as each organization does. Further, each Directorate within the CIA would almost certainly score differently in the OCAI assessment.
From my research and perspective, attention to ethical leader development would probably best be placed on 1) where Clan Culture influence was becoming an ethical weakness and 2) where the value of freedom and flexibility was not uniform among the different ranks.
Below is a more detailed explanation of the OCAI along with insights from my research on ethical leadership at the CIA.
Market, Hierarchy, Adhocracy, Clan.
The theory that OCAI is based on proposes that there are competing values in organization that form a 2x2 matrix and organizations tend to skew to the different quadrants.
- Stability & control versus flexibility and freedom to act
- Internal focus & integration versus external focus & differentiation
OCAI describes the tendencies of the different culture types. Koehn’s article dives into the leadership and ethical tendencies of each type, highlighting strengths and pitfalls, an analytic angle useful when consulting for cultural change related to security and risks in organizations.
While reading Koehn’s OCAI article in Fall of 2023 and writing up the results of my dissertation, I heard the voice of one participant has they distinctly recalled how they experienced the CIA as “clannish,” using that word “clan” two or three times throughout the interview. I also heard in my mind the voice of two other participants who referred to how, at times, the CIA was “like a family,” which is how clan culture functions. I also heard participants distaste for leaders who thought they had all the answers. This distaste was a clear dislike of hierarchy culture, but evidence of the hierarchy influence with which they were dealing.
The Directorate of Analysis and Support seemed to best enable adhocracy values, whereas the Directorate of Operations employees valued the freedom and flexibility of adhocracy, but were often up against a more hierarchy culture among their leaders. All Directorates had clan culture influences, which made sense, given that that the CIA needed employees to value loyalty and commitment to the organization’s mission, the key values within clan culture.
Additional preferences and stories were starting to line up with different OCAI culture types.
Speaking Truth to Power — Freedom & Flexibility
In particular, I recalled the stories of officers speaking truth to power, a theme related to the value of Freedom and Flexibility. Those stories were examples of the former CIA officers who spoke up and against the grain, with varying levels of acceptance for this behavior. A clear clash in this value within the organization.
One participant described being a “back bencher” sitting against the wall in a meeting as opposed to at the table. The “back bench” was to be present and seen, but not heard. This participant broke from the norms and spoke up in the meeting. He voiced his perspective to the CIA Director himself, providing information that was counter to supporting the plan/mission they were discussing. The result was that after the meeting, some colleagues told him he shouldn’t have said anything, it wasn’t his place. The Director did not welcome the countering view either. The participant, however, felt strong in his conviction and knew it was, “the right thing to do.” He was socially sanctioned, but not officially sanctioned via formal punishment for speaking truth to power.
(Of note, the CIA Director at the time had a military background, thus came from a strict hierarchy culture. To put in OCAI terms, the participant felt he wanted to demonstrate the CIA’s freedom and flexibility values which ran counter to the military preference for stability and control).
In hearing of other similar instances, in which there was an attempt to speak the truth to someone in a leadership position, CIA officers were caught in conflict between the flexibility and freedom to act that the CIA alluded to in its symbols and the reality of hierarchy culture influence.
The symbols signaling the freedom and flexibility of adhocracy or clan values included the quote, “And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free,” which was featured predominantly on the wall of the headquarters building. The symbols encouraged an officer speaking up, no matter the rank, but were counter to the reality that the organization had hierarchy culture influences that employees were up against.
The CIA was not as hierarchical as the military, where people could be formally sanctioned for their behavior of speaking up and out against a higher rank. However, CIA officers still experienced or considered informal sanctions in their decision making. Leaders in hierarchical cultures prefer to be seen as a source of guidance and as having the answers. Employees in organizations with a stronger values in freedom and flexibility (adhocracy and clan) are enabled to act without top-down guidance.
Clan Culture
Clan culture, along with adhocracy, has a strong flexibility and freedom to act. However, clan culture is inwardly focused on the organization while adhocracy is outwardly focused on customer needs.
It was apparent there were “clannish” tendencies through the organization. The clan culture throughout the organization benefitted officers because it provided family-like support in ongoing, challenging situations. It benefitting the organization because loyalty was important to keeping the CIA’s secrets.
Clan culture seemed particularly strong in the Directorate of Operations. Contrastingly, the freedom and flexibility value that encompasses both Clan and Adhocracy culture skewed more towards adhocracy in the Directorate of Analysis and Directorate of Support.
Evidence from officers in the Directorate of Analysis and Support described a more adhocracy culture, in which success is defined as the ability to invent and deliver products and services. In clan culture, success followed the high commitment to the team and mission.
This difference was in how the value of freedom and flexibility was implemented between the two directorates. The Directorate of Operations was mostly inwardly focused on accomplishing their operations, whereas the Directorate of Analysis and Support were typically outwardly focused on supporting customers, such as policy makers (analysis) or internal customers (support).
Operations Officers, in particular, described their need to manage the negative ethical influences of clan culture within the Directorate of Operations. Clan culture includes a sense of loyalty to the team and long-term commitment, which is needed at the CIA and in the Directorate of Operations to protect secrets. However, many officers’ stories included regulating potentially unethical behavior that can be enabled by the clan culture.
The officers’ stories included staying strong in holding people accountable to HR policies about financial actions or behavior towards others. One officer told the story of needing to fully investigate when a problem arose, even if it is not immediately beneficial to the team to “out” specific members’ unethical behavior. As explained by OCAI, clan culture’s HR function is often weak and employees may agree to “go along to get along,” even with bad behavior, rather than disrupt the team. It was clear that the officers committed to their best ethical leadership and were combatting clan culture’s ethical weaknesses in the Directorate.
The insights from Koehn’s OCAI article and the experiences of CIA officers reveal the complexities of organizational culture and the competing values that influence behaviors, decision-making, and leadership dynamics. This article offers a glimpse, while the dissertation has more detailed stories and analysis.
Understanding the nuances through the lens of the OCAI framework can help leaders and consultants identify areas where cultural strengths can be harnessed and potential pitfalls addressed. For organizations navigating change or managing risk, acknowledging these cultural realities is vital to fostering an environment where ethical behavior and adaptive leadership can thrive.