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Yes, I am a little larger than I need to be. My body is probably not as efficient as it could be. Enough about me and on to organisational health, as shared by Patrick Lencioni.
Patrick claims that understanding your organisational health status could be your biggest competitive advantage. People want to work at a healthy organisation. People are better motivated when part of a healthy organisation. Now, working for a Bible translation ministry, competitive advantage isn’t exactly where we are at. Having said that, I do believe we can still apply some of the principles and get on with our task more efficiently, more effectively and produce better quality work reaching more people with bigger smiles on our faces.
5 things he says we can measure when considering our health status.
Minimise policy
Minimise confusion
High moral standards
High productivity
Low staff turnover
Not sure where we would rank on those things. I think my group has quite a low amount of policy… so much so, that I think there needs to be a bit more in some areas! But then I have to also consider my aspie nature that is driven by rules and regulations, a nature that likes black and white, a nature is not happy with uncertainty. (I know, I know, HOW DO I SURVIVE IN NIGERIA!!?!)
Other things that he mentioned along the way…
Strategy should be accessible to everyone. An interesting bit of timing as we were currently looking at Nigeria Group strategy, and International are in the process of re-working theirs. Some call it reinvention.
Over-communicate. It takes a person to hear a message 7 times before it sinks in. I have heard it said that we are an intellectual bunch and so we shouldn’t need a message repeating. RUBBISH. It might mean we only need to hear it 5 times instead of 7, but it still needs communicating multiple times, preferably in multiple styles and mediums.
Reinforce the clarity through human systems. What does our finance system communicate about our core values? What does our membership structure communicate about us? What does out staff manual communicate about us? What does our website communicate about us? If we try to say one thing, but all our systems point to something else, people are going to believe the systems not the words.
It seemed a long-winded way of saying, “Do what you say!” If you have made a decision about something, follow through all the way, to the last man.
So where are we with these things? I don’t think I can give you my thoughts, because there are so many different parts to our organisation. International could improve a few of these things, Nigeria Group could improve a few of these things, and I personally could improve a few of these things…
I might also look up some of Patrick’s other materials.
