Creating Clarity in your Organization:
This worksheet is a compilation of other methodologies offered as a consultant, and is adapted largely from Patrick Lencioni’s book, The Advantage.
Six fundamental questions to be answered:
- Why do we exist?
- How do we behave?
- What do we do?
- How will we succeed?
- What’s the most important thing right now?
- Who must do what?
Why do we exist?
This is the core purpose. Collins addresses this thoroughly in Built to Last and Good to Great. Get to the answer by asking “why?” until a purposeful statement emerges. It’s going to be a variation on the theme of making something better than it already is. Common categories:
- Serving the customer
- Love of the work or industry
- Social or large scale cause
- Community improvement
- Employee service
- Wealth acquisition
Health care services are usually going to be about the customer (patient), but it’s important to identify the main piece, and to firmly and enthusiastically agree on it.
How do we behave?
This is identification of core, unchanging values. Must be pre-existing and unchanging. Usually 2 or 3 values. Not aspirational, taken for granted, or evolved by accident.
How to identify?
- Think of a customer and an employee who embody the core values of the company. What are those values?
- Think of a customer and an employee who did not embody the values of the company. What are those values? What is the opposite of those values?
What do we do?
What is the simplest sentence that describes what you do? What is on your menu? This should be a simple declarative statement, without excessive verbiage.
How will we succeed?
This is the strategy necessary to achieve success. First, we need to define success. Think of the triple bottom-line approach:
- Financial bottom line: are we sustainably profitable and does the remuneration feel proportional to the effort and capital at risk? What set of dollar figures would be “yes”.
- Internal bottom line: are our employees fully engaged, on board with the mission and values, happy and excited to be a part of this team?
- External bottom line: are we making an meaningful positive impact? Are we improving the pathways for individual customers, the community, the world at large?
Strategic anchors: should be 3 ideally. Make a list of the ways you have inserted yourself into the community, including past and present customers. Include things you aspire to do, but have not yet done. Some of the listed ideas will have a common root, and that’s an anchor for you.
If your strategic pathways have not succeeded or you want to change direction, you will need to include “future” strategies or actions on this list.
Strategies need to be revisited only if the end results are unsatisfactory or if external conditions change markedly instead of gradually.
What’s the most important thing right now?
This is the rallying cry of the company as a whole. Getting a single, top of the list item helps avoid majoring in minors, wild swings, and campaign of the month approaches.
The rallying cry has to be a single thing, agreed upon and well understood, qualitative rather than quantitative, and short range: 3-6 months, 12 months maximum.
After identification, definition of measurable objectives is next. How will you know when you get there? Must be clear, simple and accessible. The two- tier approach is: identify a few ways you can accomplish your rallying cry. Then define the numbers that would support that method.
Who must do what?
This is a definition of the critical areas of responsibility in the company, and assignation of bottom line responsibility to a particular person or department. Common areas to address: sales, marketing, finance, operations, HR, design/engineering, IT, legal including regulatory compliance and customer service. Smaller organizations will have single persons responsible for multiple areas. If a single person has multiple responsibilities, such as HR versus patient care, That person must be careful in approach and communication to the other members of the group and to the recipient.
End result
We want to end with an organization where everyone knows and understands the mission, the core values, the strategy and the rallying cry.
Resources:
- The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni.
- Built to Last by Jim Collins
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter