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Organizational
Development &
Measurement
Jordan Pallitto , Consultant |
Leveraging Organizational Milestones for Continuous Improvement
“Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experiences and invest them in the future.”
–Jim Rohn; entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker
Organizational milestones such as anniversaries or conclusions of long-term projects are often causes for celebration. The former occasion may involve the creation of a new and improved company logo boasting years of service; an elaborate gala; or letters of appreciation to long-tenured employees who’ve helped the organization navigate through thick and thin over many years. The latter occasion might involve a reception where clients and employees gather to reflect on the hard work and success achieved over the past months or years.
In either case, the celebration recognizes accomplishments and achievements. However, many organizations miss the opportunity to leverage important milestones for improvement. Achievements and milestones are opportunities for reflection, assessment, diagnosis, and action planning. Without this vision, your organization may lack cause for celebration in the future.
How can your organization celebrate organizational achievements and take advantage of them to create a culture of continuous improvement?
The first step must be a genuine acknowledgement that the reason for your current celebration is not merely luck, but instead some collection of correct decisions, alchemy of employee expertise and motivation, thwarted external threats, or an amalgam of other actions without which current success would not exist.
The second step is to utilize pre-existing tools to identify those unique drivers of success and opportunities for improvement. Such tools and potential outcomes include:
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Organizational and Operational Capacity Assessments – This assessment compares organizational infrastructure to accepted best practices. What is it about our Planning, HR, IT, Marketing and Communications, or other infrastructure that stimulates or detracts from current success?
An Organizational or Operational Capacity Assessment may indicate that
your Board of Directors or senior leadership has the highest relative
capacity in your organization and that the professional networks of your
high-profile Board members or executives have been and are vital to the
growth of your customer base. The same Assessment may indicate that
your Planning infrastructure has the lowest level of capacity and that your
Mission and Vision are not compelling, relevant, inspiring, nor wholly
subscribed to throughout the organization.
Employee Opinion Survey results may suggest that your rewards and
recognition program has kept and may continue to keep most employees
motivated to perform well, but the lack of work/life balance keeps other from
reaching their potential.
Client and Customer Feedback Systems may unveil superior perceptions of
product quality but lackluster customer service.
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360-Degree Feedback Tools – These tools allow supervisors and subordinates alike to evaluate employee performance. Who are the “brightest stars” in our organization who perform well themselves while positively influencing the performance of others and, who may need additional professional development?
360-Degree Feedback Tools may indicate that your perception of the
management team’s performance may be different from the perception of a
certain group of employees.
Gathering such intelligence enables your organization to invest in practices and infrastructure so you can achieve your next big organizational milestone.
The third step is to look toward the future and implement practices within the organization to enhance and formalize the identified drivers of success to ensure they continually occur and contribute to endured prosperity.
In the cases above, the organization may consider growing the Board of Directors with additional high-profile members, engaging in an organization-wide strategic planning process, offering work/life balance programs as incentives themselves, investing in customer service training, and engaging a conflict resolution process to repair relationships between certain employees and management.
The fourth step is to implement regular evaluation procedures to consistently gauge your organization’s progress and satisfaction with the newly-adopted practices. Management should set aside time each month to determine whether the practices and infrastructure projects listed above have been given adequate attention and are on track.
The fifth step is to repeat steps one through four after the adopted practices and infrastructure lead your organization to its next significant milestone.
Achievements and milestones should be celebrated. They are opportunities for organizations to come together and rally around a job-well-done. Your organization should not let the opportunity pass by, however, to ask, “How did we do it?” The answers to that question arise from Organizational Capacity Assessments, Employee Opinion Surveys, Client and Customer Feedback Systems, and 360-Degree Feedback Tools. These tools can show you, specifically, what practices or characteristics of your infrastructure helped achieve the success that you are currently enjoying. You can then invest to make sure those practices remain or are enhanced, enabling the cause for celebration long into the future.
For more information on how The Hill Group can help your organization leverage milestones to sustain continuous improvement, contact our consultant specializing in survey and diagnostic measurement, organizational capacity assessments, and strategic planning, Jordan Pallitto, at 412.722.1111 or jpallitto@hillgroupinc.com
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