What makes a successful organization?

How do you know you are part of a successful organization?  Is it that you've survived the past several years and not gone out of business or is that you've grown by 4% per year or some other metric?  Do you have metrics which define success in your particular field?

I write this recovering from a meeting last week where I listened to a briefer talk about spending the last year developing a set of metrics for an organization's success and the 30 minute brief didn't tell me anything about the organization's metrics, the data that would inform them, or what these metrics would be used for.  In the planning world metrics are a powerful tool that too often are overlooked and take a backseat to other means to determine success.

The most powerful example of this I can provide is that I attended a presentation at a Navy base and the briefer was talking about a deployment of a hospital ship that had just ended and he was going port by port discussing the number of locals treated while the ship was there, medications provided, veterinarian consults conducted on livestock, etc...however he came to one port and the medical numbers were through the roof and he said we won't be going back there again.  I was kinda shocked he said that.  After he talked more the true purpose of that particular visit was yes to treat locals but the most important issue was to increase the public perception of the United States and in this case interviews didn't bear that out.

So successful organizations know what equals success and track those numbers.  They are willing to examine themselves and make adjustments based on the data available.  Additionally, these organizations are keen to understand are they doing things right and are they doing the right things.  Finally, I've noticed that successful organizations are those where the staff knows the metrics and assists in gathering data to enable evaluation.

Thoughts on Planning

General Eisenhower is credited with saying, "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable" and I agree with this sentiment. Plans written and placed on a shelf for a particular situation or an opportunity to develop only serve to gather dust.  However, living plans can be updated too frequently and if that happens they are also nearly useless because the goals and objectives will likely change from update to update leaving those using them uncertain as to the current goals and objectives.  So what’s the best compromise here?  Should we write grand plans that map out the next 5-10 years of our businesses?  Do we know what might or might not happen in that timeframe?   

 

To me there’s not that much certainty in the world and let's be honest, writing big plans that have little chance of execution is a painfully time consuming effort that likely will not pay big dividends.  Sun Tzu said that, “Therefore, just as water retains no constant shape, so in warfare there are no constant conditions” and planning is no different.  That said, I think there’s a compromise that provides clear overall guidance on the way forward with room for more exacting planning when the time is right.  For example, as one surveys the landscape of their particular corner of a market they could see a desired path emerging over the next five years.  But rather than mapping out each exact step over the next five years, I’d offer that this path should be developed somewhat vague which would allow for more detailed planning to be done in yearly increments.  Pushing planning to a yearly cycle will allow those doing the planning to leverage more accurate information for the particular timeframe in question vice using generalizations which might/might not prove accurate. 

 

Plans conceived on a tighter annual timeline will allow planners to take the overarching vision of the five year plan and examine the key goals for that given year, develop accurate assumptions, adjust goals and objectives to the current situation, and take into account the events of the previous year that either negatively or positively impact the next year.  Additionally, a yearly planning cycle will allow management to communicate clearly with their staff on the annual goals and objectives which could build a more inclusive staff that understands how their efforts impact the overall success of the organization. 

 

In the end, planning as a process is worthwhile even if a grand strategy is not realized.  A formal planning process will force an organization to think about situations from different angles and likely will bring out aspects not before considered.  A rigorous planning methodology will tease out truths, shine light on falsehoods, and ultimately will improve the quality of an organization.

Assessments - do you know where you are?

I was reading part of an Andy McNab book about his selection for the British SAS and the portion of land navigation where they were told where to go and took off running to get there.  When they thought they were close they had to take out a topographic map and point with a bade of grass or a small stick where they thought they were on the map and the instructor would confirm or deny their assessed location.  If correct they were given a new waypoint and if not the instructor would tell them to correctly identify their location and then move on.  Long way to get to the simple point that you need to where you organizationally and where you want to go.  It's important that your staff understands what's important from a management perspective and what that means to their organization.

So how do you do this?  Sadly there's not one method that works for all occasions.  You might be able to get away with simply setting goals like, "Increase sales every quarter by 5%" and then following a trend line from one quarter to the next.  Or you might be able to simply chart the number of page views of your site on a daily basis and that is diagnostic enough for your needs.  Or you might need to go to a different extreme and establish what objectives you want to achieve, what effects you need to meet those objectives and what tasks are required to meet those effects.  This last methodology is more of a military way to approach this along with the associate measures of performance and measures of effectiveness which look at task accomplishment and are we doing the right things.

It really boils down to organizational navigation through your business.  You need to know where you are beyond what your gut tells you.  I do concede that a gut feeling is useful but one can start to believe their own assessment and ultimately have a situation go bad on them if you don't consult another source to see where you are.  This is not an easy thing to do sometimes, especially in today's GPS, smart phone world in which you can click a button and see how many people have viewed your profile, like your Facebook status, etc...Assessments are difficult but are absolutely fundamental to learning from your mistakes, and charting a successful way forward.   Invest the time to figure out what's important to you and your organization and ensure your staffs know what these measures are and what they are responsible for in this arena.  An informed staff who knows what they are graded on will, in the long run, be a better performing team that one that does not know the organizational measures of success.

Top or bottom driven - which is better?

I've been in a quandary lately.  The last 12 years of my professional life have been in organizations that are top driven.  By that I mean if you think of a triangle, there is a leader at the top that establishes a clear vision and that guidance comes down to managers, down to workers, etc...However, I currently work at an organization that instead primarily works things from the bottom up.  In our current case the workers push up many ideas based on what they think are important.  There's a place for both concepts, but is one necessarily better than the other?  With ideas coming from the bottom of the triangle to the top there's room for duplication of efforts and a perceived or real lack of clear direction for the organization.  

I've had the opportunity to work for micro managers and the polar opposites of micro managers and after working for both, I've come to this realization.  I work better in a top down organization.  I've found my best successes in an environment where leadership provides some broad overarching goals but doesn't tell you exactly how to get there.  In this case you understand where leadership wants to go but gives you the opportunity to define the route you'll take to get there which ultimately can lead to new and innovative solutions.