How Healthy is Your Company?
If you lead an organization (or group) there are probably several things that keep you up at night. There might be concerns about employee morale and retention, there are probably concerns about whether your products or services are still relevant in a constantly changing market. Cash flow concerns, rising expenses, customer attrition and the lists go on and on. But how can you get a true reading on the health of your business?
Gathering Useful Information – Organizational Assessment
One potential problem that many organizations face is the lack of timely and accurate data. This is where the Organizational Assessment (OA) comes in. An OA is the “systematic process for obtaining valid information about the performance of an organization and the factors that affect performance” (Your Introductory Guide to OA, n.d.) This is the long way of saying that an OA pulls back the covers on your organization so you can see what is actually going, versus just guessing. There are many times where guessing and intuition can be helpful, but in these situations, it’s probably just going to keep you up at night and give you added stress. Let’s end the guesswork!
We can think of an OA like an annual physical that you might get from your healthcare provider. Just like you want a qualified provider to give you a physical examination, it’s important to get the right person or team to do this work. As a rule, choose two people from within your organization to conduct the OA. By having two people on the project, you’ll be able to rule out unconscious bias that might skew the results of the OA. These people should be familiar with the culture, the systems and processes that are at work in your company.
What does “good” look like when picking an OA team? A winning team will have these characteristics:
- Objective (need to have an open mind for what the data presents)
- Credible (if the report is going to be taken seriously, the OA team needs to have respected people on it)
- Communication (Must be able to produce a readable, actionable report)
- Soft Skills (need to be able to play well with others. High levels of Emotional Intelligence go a long way)
- Technical Ability (Needs to have a deep understanding of the job to be done)
- Time (need to have the ability to commit meaningful time to the assessment process)
Getting to Work
Once the OA team has been selected, the fun begins. There are many online resources for the inner workings of an OA, but the common elements might be:
- A clear scope of what needs to be accomplished.
- Determine what the deliverables of the OA will be.
- A clear process for obtaining the information.
- A plan to follow up or action the results of the assessment.
As a leader, you deserve to know how your business is doing instead of having to guess. With an Organizational Assessment in hand, you will sleep better and make decisions that are based on actual data.
Leadership
So, why is an IT support company is writing about leadership topics? Wonder no more! The research shows that as many as 8 out of 10 small businesses fail in the first 4 years. Most of those failures can be attributed to leadership failure. We exist as a company to provide IT and Business support to businesses with 10-50 employees. If we can share leadership topics that can help build stronger leaders, we all do better!
If you’re looking for a reliable IT company in Spokane, work with us! We have helped our clients be more productive, increase business reliability and provided expert, responsive help desk services. Call us and we’ll be glad to assist you with any issues that may be holding back your business’ success.
References
Your Introductory Guide to OA. (n.d.). Retrieved from Relfect & Learn: http://www.reflectlearn.org/discover/your-introductory-guide-to-oa
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Philantech3 is a complete IT services & IT support company working with organizations in Spokane.