Four Secrets For Driving Organizational Results

Posted by Jim Connolly on 25 November, 2009  Email This Post -  Print This Post

A secret is defined as something hidden or concealed.  On the other hand, some secrets are hidden in plain sight.  You just have to know what to look for. 

So it is with these four secrets for driving organizational results.  These “secrets” are hidden in plain sight, but not used by most business leaders for a variety of reasons.  “We’ve never done it that way before.”  “I don’t have time to figure out a new way of doing things.”  “The results we get are not great, but they’re consistent.”

Whatever the reasons for not using these “secrets,” here are four secrets that can significantly improve organizational results if you will use them in your organizations.

1. Improve Employee Performance.  Organizational results is a function of individual employee performance.  Whether you implement behavioral interviewing, improve leadership effectiveness, increase employee accountability, improve the effectiveness of decision making, make meetings more productive or learn to have more honest and direct conversations, you can directly improve the performance of your employees individually and collectively.
2. Organizational Process/Structure: Your organization’s processes and structure are either helping build productivity and organizational effectiveness or your processes and structure are working against your efforts to improve organizational performance and results.  Organizational process and structure can create limitations, obstacles and a culture of “it’s not my job.”  Or, organizational processes and structure can create a balance between giving employees the responsibility they want while, at the same time, providing high levels of accountability for results.  Apply this secret and it will feel like you’ve released the emergency brake while driving down the road.
3. Breakthrough Strategic Planning:  If your strategic planning efforts are based on forecasting forward the same 2.5% growth from the last three years to next three years, it’s not strategic planning.  Breakthrough strategic planning involves looking for market opportunities where you can win and where your competitor’s can’t win.  What are the strengths unique to your organization and how can you capitalize on them?  Figure that out for your company and organize to take advantage of those opportunities.  If you do, you’ll set sales and profitability records that will stun you.
4. Management Model Innovation:  Face it, while we have a great track record for product innovation and technology innovation in the last fifty years, we have nothing to show in terms of management innovation.  We are, today, using virtually the same management model that was designed by people born in the late 1800’s to usher in the industrial revolution.  Job descriptions, organizational charts, titles, productivity measures and a fanatical focus on efficiency are all creations of the industrial age management model.  These 100+ year old practices were not designed to address today’s issues of global competition, deregulation, technology advances, 5 generations working in the same workforce, the increasing pace of change, information overload and the impact of the Internet.  Find new ways to manage the organization of today and you’ll build competitive advantage that cannot be matched.

Four “secrets”, each of which can improve organizational performance dramatically.  Decide on which “secret” you want to focus on and gather the resources necessary to implement some of these proven practices.  

If you do, you’ll get to the end of 2010 and be amazed at your progress.  If you don’t, you’ll be disappointed as you look back at the opportunities you missed out on in 2010.  The decision is yours.