Does every moment you invest, dollar you spend, program you run, contribute to achieving your vision?
Talking about Organisational Effectiveness Strategy can be daunting and overwhelming. However, in reality, it is a disciplined and effective way of making sure every moment you invest, dollar you spend, program you run, is contributing to your business achieving your vision.
When I think of the need to make sure your People and Culture activity aligns with your business strategy, I often reflect on working with one particular client over many years and the conversations we had about this. They were facing substantial technology lead disruption and needed to reinvent themselves and their offering or risk becoming irrelevant. Their first reaction when I met with them was “we need to transform our business so we need a new plan and to start doing things to make it happen”. Sound reasonable right? Mmm, sort of right but they were coming from a position that they were at ground zero in the change process.
I encouraged them to pause and, with the key influencers within the business, lead them through the exercise of affirming their change destination – what will success look like when we achieve it?
Once they were clear about this we moved to look at what they were already doing that was ‘pushing’ or supporting the desired change. We mapped this using a well-known management model and it revealed that they were already well down the transformational track in terms of critical activity. This was hugely reassuring and a reminder that change is a constant.
We then moved to look at where there were gaps in focus and looked to identify what were the blockers that needed to be removed. We ascertained what needed to be added to their program to achieve organisational effectiveness and the realisation of their ’transformation’ as a business. The plan was clear and work continued or in some areas began.
My learnings from this were substantial. It is important to remember that mapping what you are already doing is as powerful and reassuring as identifying what new things need to be started.
Have a go at it yourself – give the PeopleScape OE model a go – and you might just gain greater clarity and even a bit of reassurance that you are on the right track.
The PeopleScape OE Model for Organisational Effectiveness
