When did you as a business leader last systematically assess the current state of health of your organisation? I don't mean its financial state - I bet you check on that all the time. I mean the body of the organisation - its heart, lungs and circulation!
What's your cholesterol level? Are you at the optimum weight for your height? Is your level of general fitness adequate for the demands your life makes on your body?
These might be questions you have considered, as I have, as you assess the toll that life is taking on your body! Indeed you may have made a few resolutions and made a few changes as a result.
But when did you as a business leader last systematically assess the current state of health of your organisation? I don't mean its financial state - I bet you check on that all the time. Nor do I mean the structures, systems, policies, legal compliance and other concrete issues, that I am confident you, as do most of our clients, keep a more or less close eye on all the time. I mean the body of the organisation - its heart, lungs and circulation!
In my book that means knowing at any given moment whether the strategy and direction of the organisation is in good shape right the way through to the most junior member of staff and the farthest outpost. It means measuring, with as much rigour as you measure your financial state, that the culture of the organisation is healthy, and up to the demands you make on it. And it means knowing that every area of the organisation is delivering optimum performance and results, and doing so in a way that doesn't demand that 'all-hands-to-the-pump' desperate dash at the end of each quarter or the end of the year.
What is 'Organisation Health'?
Basically I mean the degree to which the unique characteristics of your organisation support or hinder what it exists for. If you are training to be an Olympic long distance runner the requirements of your bodily health will be different from what sustains your body as someone who takes little or no exercise! You need different priority areas, amount of attention, commitment and effort to win the Olympic medal; how you spend your time, together with the short and long term consequences, is different too!
So while the exact degree of required organisation health will vary depending on what you are asking of your organisation, no organisation sets out to be a couch potato! "Lean and mean", "efficient and effective", "the best", "market leaders" are the familiar phrases. Yet you may sometimes be disillusioned that, despite all the resources at your disposal, your organisation does not reliably and consistently meet its objectives. Can you say, hand on heart, that you know you have created an organisation that people are proud of and satisfied with - and back up your claim with objective data? A recent Sunday Times survey showed that companies whose people rated the organisation highly had, over a 5-year period, share growth 40-50% higher than the average of the FTSE all-share listed companies.
How Can You Check the Health of Your Organisation?
At the beginning of this article I asked a few questions that will be familiar to those of you who periodically undertake a systematic check of your own health. Let's ask a few similar ones for the health of your organisation:
- How concise and compelling a way do you have to communicate the business's strategy?
- To what extent do all managers and staff believe the strategy is achievable, find it personally exciting, and share it concisely and compellingly with others?
- How far is the strategic plan translated into practical steps which are owned by specific individuals and well integrated into each individual's total work plan?
- As a business, how proactively do you develop your culture, especially when your strategy changes?
- How effective are all top and middle management in coaching all employees to demonstrate the stated company values? Do you have stated company values?
These are just a few of the questions you should be considering if you want to make a systematic job of assessing the health of your organisation. How fit is your organisation? On a scale from 1, couldn't be worse, to 5, world-class, how would you score your own organisation?
The Organisation Health Check
The Health Check falls into three main areas comprising 15 key indicators of organisation health, each divided into five implementation standards, giving you a ratable scale from 'awful - couldn't be worse' to 'world-class'. You also rate each of the 15 indicators in terms of importance to your organisation. The 3 main areas and 15 key indicators are:
Strategy
- Creation of a Shared Direction
- Effective Communication of Shared Direction
- Personal Commitment to the Shared Direction
- Achievability of Shared Direction
- Practical Implementation of Shared Direction
Culture
- Creation of a Strategy-led Culture
- Demonstrated Values
- Passion for Work
- Partnership
- Customer Focus
Performance
- Performance Culture
- Accountability
How You Can Use the Results
The Health Check gives you clear guidance as to what priorities to work on to have your organisation be in peak condition, and in the best possible shape to achieve its Purpose.
You have a platform for decisions to be made collectively, objectively and in such a way that, over time, you can measure progress in a systematic and organised fashion.
- You can quantify the business's health in a way that is as tangible as financial measurement
- You can prioritise development areas appropriately among other business issues
- You can measure and manage improvement over time
What are You Like in a Crisis?
This article gives an insight into what happens in a crisis to our reactions and ability to think clearly. It suggests some simple strategies to restore equilibrium and 'manage your mind'.
How to Make Change Stick
There are two clear groups of factors to take into account if you want to make changes stick and produce outstanding results quickly, efficiently and permanently: the 'internal', and the 'external'. And there's a sensitive balance to strike when you consider which to pay attention to at any given time.
Beware: Groupthink!
Groupthink is a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive, task-centred group, when their need for unanimity supersedes the need to make a decision based on rational information. Groupthink can lead to bad judgments and decisions being made, and can also cause a group of decision makers to rationalise a poor decision after the fact. It's a simple and totally inadequate way to deal with difficult issues.
