Tips for Assessing Your Organization and Its Effectiveness
Below are four tips that can help you reflect on your organizational mirror and performance in 2015 and, ideally, will keep you moving forward on the path to increased profitability, engaged employees, satisfied customers and clients, and the challenge of change and business competitiveness.
1. Gain Consensus on What High Performance Means for Our Company
Every company needs its own definition of high performance. Below is an example to help trigger your thinking and perhaps start an internal dialogue.
Our high-performance organization is made up of highly energized staff who are focused on strategic priorities. Our vision and strategy is understood by all, productivity is increased, market share grows, the workforce is highly motivated, teams function collaboratively, customer satisfaction and loyalty are paramount, and innovation is a core belief.
2. Accumulate Evidence as to the Strengths and Weaknesses of Our Organization’s Leadership, Culture, and Talent
Perceptions without evidence are just ideas that are difficult to put into action. Assess and accumulate hard and qualitative data as to what is working and not working in the company. This process will set a path forward for action and, at the same time, create a baseline and a set of targets for improvement.
3. Avoid the One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Managing Change
One size fits all may be great when buying socks but less than satisfying when organizations are faced with the challenge of change. Questions of urgency, speed, pace, complexity, levels of resistance and resolve, initiative’s absorption, and the design of the change process, program, project, enterprise, or function must be operationalized effectively to ensure change will stick. Do it right the first time. The cost of failure can be quite high.
4. Build Collaborative High-Performance Teams
In today’s business reality, no one employee, leader, or manager has all the answers. Train every team member in how to lead a team, how to communicate across boundaries, how to reach consensus, how to manage conflict, and how to set actionable performance targets and plans that are aligned with accountability. The result will be outcomes of high performance and sustainable team results.
By implementing these four critical organizational high-performance tips, you will accomplish unprecedented levels of success in the New Year.