Performance, execution, results... there is little debate on what matters for organizations, but great consternation on how to deliver. In our experience with organizational design, enabling desired performance can be boiled down to a simple formula: Compelling X Congruent X Cognizant.
Compelling
Understanding the business of the business should be foundational; how do we create the value our customers will purchase? We are no longer surprised to find that a client organization struggles to answer this basic question. One of us was a member of an organization whose first proposed mission statement was "to maximize profit". That's not the question; how are you proposing to earn your profit?
Is there a credible and compelling future for the organization? Has anyone bothered to give it some thought? A shared vision is a powerful force in aligning an organization, and the more people believe it achievable, the more value they assign to the organization.
Strategic focus on what we do / what we don't do, who are customers are / who they are not, and what distinguishes our company all help create a sense of identity/brand. In Good to Great, Jim Collins described the hedgehog concept: all of the great companies had incredible focus. We have seen far more of the opposite - fear of focus because it might limit opportunities.
Ultimately, to be compelling requires not just the presence of a defined mission, an inspiring vision, a shared set of values, and a strategic focus, but all of that must be understood and embedded in the organization. Investors, employees, leaders, and customers should all have the same sense of organizational identity and be able to articulate it simply.
Congruent
Organizational health is similar to human health in that it depends on a standard set of systems that need to work in harmony. Lack of alignment between one part of an organization and another depletes scarce resources: money, time, and talent. Understanding organizational systems and creating alignment across the entire organization does not happen without intention and effort. The natural state of all growing organizations is progressive disorder, but this can be managed when leaders see the need for architecting the growing organization.
Cognizant
We hear the calls for organizational transparency more and more, but we don't see it actually happening. Accountability is still interpreted as who gets the blame when things go wrong. The way to high performance is to have the entire organization knowledgeable about the business environment and about business performance. Denial and delusion are, unfortunately, all too common; they are often the preferred means of dealing with the painful truth, but they represent an incredible impediment to optimizing performance.
The Co3Org knows and loves who they are, what they do, and where they are going - their story is compelling. Organizational systems are aligned with organizational focus and with each other - they are congruent. The entire organization is highly aware of what is going on in the business environment and with their own performance - they are cognizant. Sounds simple, and yet it is so rarely observed in nature.
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