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Is your Organization Healthy

Written by: G.J. Miller

Article Overview: A healthy organization is highly functional and programmed for growth; recognized by its’ ability to quickly translate important strategic and operational decisions into action.

Is your Organization Healthy

Some of you have seen me on my virtual soap box in your office extolling the virtues and the importance of things like employee line of sight, accountability and role clarity. In fact, I am so passionate about this topic, as it relates to an organizations’ success (your success), that some of you are probably downright tired of hearing it.

Yet despite my passion and the importance of the topic, some senior management teams stay focused on the day-to-day work rather than the overall Health of their organization; citing time and complexity issues. I sometimes feel like Paul Revere on his last ride “through the gloom and the light, the fate of a nation was riding that night.” [Longfellow] OK – so it’s not a nation at stake, but it is the fate of a company! Right about now, those of you that have not yet had the pleasure, are thinking how lucky you are that I haven’t been in your office!

But wait! I am both heartened (and I believe, vindicated!) as out of the darkness comes a global study conducted by Booz, Allen and Hamilton. Gathering data, from nearly 50,000 employees globally, over a 2 year period (staff to senior management) in 27 industries, 100 countries and 8 internal department functions, BAH key findings are:

Most organizations are unhealthy; Most of the people responding describe their organization as ineffectual. 54% of the participants answer that their company cannot seem to execute.

Some countries are healthier than others; China is one of the healthiest countries based on results from 54% of the surveys completed in that country versus healthy responses of 31% globally and 33% in the U.S. Only Japan, Canada and Australia are worse.

Healthy Companies reap better results; Organization health brings financial success. Healthy companies, it seems, are at least twice as likely to report better than average industry profitability.

All industries show signs of dysfunction; Real Estate is the healthiest and utilities the least healthy, but no industry stands out as best.

Unhealthy organizations lack clear decision rights; or what we like to call “role clarity”. Only 43% of all respondents believe that people in their organization have clearly know which decisions they are responsible for. In unhealthy companies that number drops to 23%. That means that less than 1 in 4 people know where their job ends and another person’s begins! Yet nearly 80% of respondents in healthy companies agree that everyone in their company has a clear idea of the decisions and actions they are accountable for.

Insufficient information flows are common in unhealthy companies; Only one in five feel that employees have the information they need to understand the bottom line impact of their decisions ( we call this line of sight) while 3 times as many in healthy organizations feel they do.

Larger Organizations are less healthy; mostly because smaller organizations are generally more effective at changing and executing.

“Altitude” determines attitude; more than any other group, senior executives report that their organizations are healthy while 70% of mid-level managers and below, in the same company, disagree and say that important information does not always roll all the way down or up.

How do you ensure my organization is healthy?
Line of Sight – Communicate your corporate goals to all employees and then ensure that each employee has at least 2 goals annually that will contribute to achieving that corporate goal and that it is measurable. If people understand how their success is measured they will understand how their decisions affect their success and ultimately the organizations.

Accountability – Everyone knows that rewarding employees for doing the right thing or achieving their goals is important. But it is critical that organizations hold people accountable for not delivering results or delivering the wrong results. If there is no differentiation you can rest assured that the performance level of those not delivering will not rise to the level of those who are – over time the reverse will happen. Your organization will be come unhealthy and ineffectual.

Role Clarity – There are few people in organizations (indeed in life) that are willing to take the bull by the horns, take that leap, pick up the ball and take a chance that they have it right. Most people will do nothing and that’s not healthy. Ensuring that people know what their role is, where they can and should make decisions and who they must work with keeps the organization moving forward.

So, I’m afraid I won’t be getting off my soap box any time soon! We at HR Construct can help make this happen in your organization because this is our passion.

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Article Tags: accountability, booz allen and hamilton, clarity, complexity issues, department functions, fate, financial success, global study, gloom, healthiest countries, industry profitability, line of sight, longfellow, management teams, organization health, paul revere, senior management, soap box, stake, virtues



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