Welcome to Org-wise.

There is no universally agreed upon definition of this rather lofty sounding term.  In management theory and practice, organizational excellence usually refers to the highest possible rating (or range of ratings) when an organization is evaluated qualitatively using a survey, inventory or scorecard made up of process and outcome criteria someone has decided constitute organizational ”best practices”.   However, there is no established theoretical foundation or reliable empirical support for translating the results of these normative organizational “quality” assessments into a coherent and defensible management philosophy or methodology.

A more practical and useful conception of organizational excellence from our organization consulting perspective is the concept often referred to as “organizational effectiveness”.   In practice organizational effectiveness is operationally defined as how well an organization does at achieving the outcomes it intends or is required to produce.   We believe the descriptive effectiveness approach to organizational assessment is  more realistic and accurate than the  normative excellence approach.  It balances customer and non customer “stakeholder” interests, as does the excellence approach.  Unlike the latter, however, the effectiveness approach does not impose a one-size-fits-all set of process and outcome “benchmarks” on the evaluation of organizational performance.

Accordingly, our conception of organizational excellence is organizational effectiveness as defined above.  The observations and articles on organizational “excellence” that we contribute to this blog will always come from the pragmatic and developmental perspective of effectiveness.

For example, in a partnership between an employing organization and the international union that represents a major segment of its workforce, the two institutional partners acting through their respective designees can develop a collaborative approach to issue identification; agree to share the risks involved in joint undertakings; formulate and apply confidence, trust and respect building behavioral ground rules; define their common and separate interests; learn to respect their legitimate and significant differences; improve communication and information sharing; integrate end-to-end empowerment with individual responsibility and institutional accountability; and maintain a cooperative problem-solving approach to conflict management.

Research data indicate that most of the factors influencing the success of change efforts are related to the “soft” side of change rather than the “hard” issues.  The critical factors that can scuttle change projects include resistance to change, lack of clear leadership and commitment, lack of required implementation skills, lack of sufficient employee involvement, unrealistic expectations and lack of effective coordination.  Clearly, for effective organizational change to take place the human side needs to be addressed.

What is often termed a “performance culture” is typically one in which the organization gives individual goal attainment preeminence in its performance management approach.  When taken to excess, however, a performance culture can make employees feel insecure by continuously presuring them to exceed established productivity goals, and by routinely failing to acknowledge and reward outstanding team efforts in favor of individual competition and recognition.

If a business process has at least a fair degree of complexity and multiple stakeholder interfaces, then redesigning the process to improve it usually requires collaboration not just to capture team knowledge about the process but also to involve stakeholders and subject matter experts in analyzing the process, identifying the desired improvements, scoping the improvement effort, defining measurable targets and developing and overseeing an implementation plan to make the improvements happen.

Often the most difficult way to help a team improve its effectiveness is to ask members straight away to focus on what is impeding it.  Rather than provoke the  predictable defensiveness or finger pointing by beginning with the hard work of self-examination, it is often wiser to help the team work on a task that they are motivated to accomplish.  Right after they have completed (or failed to complete) the task is a good time to ask team members how they think their handling of the task reflected their teamwork strengths and limitations.

Effective coaching requires the ability to sense what another person is thinking and feeling.  As a result, it is very difficult to acquire coaching virtuosity if you have no intuitive ”feel” for (or interest in) the implicit meaning of non verbal cues.

Competency research has shown that, for complex jobs, the critical indicators of superior performance are behavioral rather than cognitive in nature.  Simply put this means that the particular ways in which a professional or managerial specialist actively uses their knowledge or skills in given job situations is a better predictor of their ultimate job effectiveness than the breadth or depth of the knowledge and skills they possess.

Self-assurance and a consistently calm demeanor usually go a long way in helping a facilitator win a group’s trust and cooperation. The very best facilitators show sensitivity by listening actively and intently, noticing concerns and reactions and never hesitating to ask about thoughts and feelings whenever it is helpful to do so.  They manage their emotions and show self-control even in difficult situations, and they avoid losing their temper, becoming embroiled in disputes or conveying displeasure when the atmosphere becomes strained or combative. 

A common fallacy among organizational leaders is the mistaken belief that increasingly complicated organizational problems require increasingly complicated decision support systems.  Planning in today’s turbulent environment is certainly the most important task facing top management in any organization.  However, what is necessary to help organizations cope with conditions of increasing uncertainty is a hands-on planning approach that offers a clear conceptual framework and a collaborative process of deliberation for viewing and dealing with all the salient aspects of reality.

This is not intended to deny the value of technical experts and highly sophisticated management science tools in various aspects of the planning process.  It is, however, intended to try to place the use of these experts and tools in proper perspective.  Even world famous “gurus” and computerized simulations depend upon accurate specification of the overriding goals and constraints within which the organization must operate.  A collaborative process of deliberation is the only way to specify these goals and constraints accurately and completely.   

Furthermore, the genuine commitment of all employees must be developed, if even the most senior manager’s plan is to have any hope of being executed.  Experts and computers cannot be substituted for collaborative problem solving and integrative decision-making.  It is the underlying thinking, questioning, discussing, understanding and deciding processes, the human elements of planning, that are essential to any successful attempt to exert conscious control over the long-term course of an organization.