Every organization in the world is focused on their goals and objectives. And of course they are! Companies are driven by a mission of some kind: to fill a need, to offer a service or a product, to be productive and grow as a result. We achieve these goals through the careful crafting of processes, breaking them down into achievable objectives—all of which need time and attention and money to complete.
Those objectives can be so demanding that a lot of organizations become laser-focused on them. So focused, in fact, that they lose sight of everything else. They think about where they want to go without spending time on how they want to get there.
That “how” is incredibly important. And it’s informed by the very health of your organization
Organizational Health
The notion of “organizational health” as a strategic advantage was popularized a little over a decade ago by Patrick Lencioni. He argued that the pursuit of competitive advantage in measurable, technical areas often comes at the expense of ensuring organizational clarity, alignment, and team engagement. Those neglected pursuits can be described as your organization’s “health.” They are also much more difficult to measure than more technical metrics. But successful companies know that the health of the organization is what actually affects their success beyond anything else.
This idea has been around for a long time, but we believe that it’s never been more important than it is today. The ways that we used to measure org health have evolved and it’s gotten harder and harder to get your team on the same page, to ensure that your leaders are as effective as they can be.
CN’s Approach
Another problem in this space is the number of partners that just can’t wait to sell you organizational-health-in-a-bottle. Throw a rock and you’ll hit ten companies ready to walk into your business with a pre-filled map and a set of analytics, promising a healthy company at the end of the journey.
Collective Next knows that it just doesn’t work that way.
We think about your strategy, your objectives, and your industry holistically as a sort of landscape. Standing on top of the hill, we look over that landscape together to create the journey you need to undergo: Where do you want to go? Where have you already been? What are you excited or concerned about? We’ll draw on CN’s decades of experience guiding along this landscape to create the perfect map for your team. And we’ll do it together, through creativity and collaboration.
How do YOU evaluate your organization’s health?
Setting long-term strategy and hitting your goals is hard under the best of circumstances: in times of uncertainty, it can be harder still. But you can never go wrong by spending your resources on the things that keep your team aligned and accountable. Healthy organizations are the ones that are best able to adapt to a rapidly changing world. And it helps to have a partner that’s as nimble and adaptable as you are, that can look over the landscape alongside you.
As always, we’d love to hear from you. How do you evaluate organizational health? When’s the last time you undertook initiatives around these topics? Reach out to us today. We’d love to talk with you about it.