Five Simple Steps for Organizational Success
Does your business or organization have a clear organizational goal? Here are five simple steps to take your business to the next level.
As CEO, Founder, or HR leader of a rapidly growing or transforming organization, do you wonder how to ensure your organization and team are thriving, meeting, or even exceeding goals?
In this four-part series, we will be providing you a simple approach to assess what is working or standing in the way of truly moving the needle on high performance.
Before we jump into the five steps for organizational success, let’s indulge in a quick story.
Getting Lost is Easy!
I moved to the Nashville area a little over two years ago from Austin, where I had lived for most of the past thirty years. A few years before, I had family members move to Austin, and I watched them struggle to find their way around. I hate to admit it, but I always felt irritated about their lostness…until I moved too.
Two years later, I pretty much still can’t get anywhere without my GPS, and even with that, I still get lost on a regular basis, even when going to places I have been many times before. I have stared at maps, committed to giving up the GPS habit and yet, I am still lost much of the time.
Why I’m always lost (and your business may be too)
I have recently pondered this major deficit and it dawned on me how my challenge is like many of the challenges my clients face in their businesses:
I don’t know where I am starting from. I am not sure why, but I can’t really figure out where my house is in relation to the greater Nashville area, and certainly Tennessee overall. Not to make excuses, but it is an oddly shaped state, and I am still struggling to orient to where I am.
Once I am on the way, I don’t know where I am. Everything looks unfamiliar. If I knew where I was at any given point on the journey, it would be a lot easier to have a good plan on how to get where I am going.
I don’t know where I am going. Typically, I know in a general way: the new acupuncturist in Nashville, in the Berry Hill neighborhood. The problem is I don’t truly know where Berry Hill is, and when I get there, I can’t recognize it well enough to be confident I have arrived. Therefore, I spend a lot of time driving in circles and being late to the acupuncturist.
So what does this have to do with your business?
Give your business a sense of direction.
Here are some tips for how I help organizations stop from driving around in circles, transforming them into high-performing and great places to work. By the way, these tips can be used not only for organizations, but for individuals who want to transform their careers as well.
The key is a willingness to be completely honest when undertaking this appraisal.
Want to take your business or career to the next level?
Tips to bring success to your organization
By following these five simple steps, you’ll bring a new level of success to your business.
If you are doing this work at an organizational level, it may be helpful to leverage a neutral facilitator (internal or external) to gather the information and facilitate the team, but you as a leader can also follow this process.
STEP ONE: Clarify where you started
This can be accomplished in interviews, surveys, or via email. I recommend doing this individually vs. in a group to minimize “group think.” Avoid letting the team be influenced (even if only subconsciously) by what the most senior leaders say.
1) When the organization was started, what was the intended purpose?
2) When the organization was created, what were the goals and objectives?
3) Which values are fundamental and distinctive to this organization since its founding? Give examples.
STEP TWO: Clarify where you want to go
Step two can be done in conjunction with step one. I also recommend answering these questions through interviews, surveys, or via email rather than in a group.
1) How would you describe the organization's strategy?
2) What is the organization’s vision and mission?
3) What are the organization’s goals and objectives for the next year?
4) What is the organization’s primary source of advantage over our competitors?
5) What are the organization’s priorities in your three-year plan?
I can’t tell you how many clients were convinced their leadership team was aligned, only to discover that when these questions were asked, that was in fact not the case.
STEP THREE: In the next post, we will dive deeper on how to create and communicate an inspiring vision for your organization.
STEP FOUR: The third post in this series will provide advice on how to assess the current state of your organization.
STEP FIVE: The final post in this series will focus on how to create an action plan for your organization.
Want to go above and beyond? Click here to schedule an introductory meeting where we can help you create a plan for assessing your organization
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Our goal is simple: to drive high-performance results in your business through Organizational Development. Please contact me today to see how we can help:
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