Identifying and resolving
organisational issues dramatically benefits an organisation and its staff. The
quicker an organisation resolves administrative matters, the sooner it can
create a healthier workspace and focus its energy and resources on increasing
customer service and sales turnover.
Organisational issues vary
in their nature and scope. They can be strategic or tactical, with their impact
on the organisation ranging from severe and critical at one end of the spectrum
to insignificant but annoying at the other. Typical examples might include:
- A civil engineering company failing
to manage its supplier invoice processing system, resulting in supply debt
building to levels that crippled cash flow and elongated project
completion times, further compounding cash flow issues.
- A public sector organisation
implementing an inappropriate management structure preventing its private
sector trading company from reaching its maximum sales, turnover, and
profitability.
- Housing associations failing to
ensure that products and services are procured to maximise the efficient
use of financial resources, resulting in sub-optimal customer service
levels, increased costs, and elevated supply risks.
- A construction equipment importer
failing to ensure CE and ISO compliance of its products when adapting them
for sale within the UK market, placing equipment operators at severe risk
of death or injury when using the construction equipment.
- A dealership placing its field
service engineers at risk of death or serious injury by failing to specify
and procure personal protective equipment that was compliant with the
industry sectors that the dealership operated.
Low-performing organisations
are usually managed by Team Leaders whose management actions need to receive
the coaching, mentoring, or coordination required at the senior Executive Team
or Director level. Low-performing Directors and Team Leaders regularly exhibit
actions and behaviours such as:
- The inability or disinclination to
deal with controversial issues.
- Subjugating politically tricky
decisions to others.
- Rarely working or communicating
with direct or indirect teams or functions.
- Not encouraging functions to work
together through collaboration.
- Allowing silo working conditions to
propagate across an organisation.
- Not leading or taking the
initiative with performance-improvement projects.
- Failing to communicate with change
managers concerning organisational issues.
- Evolving the consensus that change
is unnecessary and not required.
- Leaving functions stagnating and
performance dropping to an all-time low.
- Acting for political reasons rather
than the general good of an organisation.
- Not asking questions to ascertain
basic information.
- Showing little regard for the
opinions of others.
- Appearing distracted when dealing
with organisational issues.
- Not holding staff or Teams to
account for poor performance.
- Ignoring the accomplishments of
high-performing staff and Teams.
- Exhibiting toxic behaviour towards
people with different opinions or ideas.
Good corporate practices
promote a sense of accomplishment and achievement. System and procedural
improvements can motivate an organisation's change management process to evolve
incrementally and increase staff motivation to push for new solutions and make
proactive changes to avoid the same issues in the future.
Organisations rarely fail
because of environmental changes. They fail because low-performing Directors
and Team Leaders cannot always communicate and/or are unable or unwilling to
deal with change. The most crucial aspect of any business is communicating
about and adapting to change, especially as a team.
Low-performing organisations
will look to increase their staff to resolve performance issues rather than
reviewing their systems and procedures to enable staff and Team Leaders to
achieve more with less by working smarter rather than harder.
Effective communication
leads to action and results, whereas poor communication causes mistakes and
delays that affect performance, customer service and profitability.
High-performing Directors and Team Leaders:
- Proactively manage the impact of
organisational and industrial uncertainty within themselves before it
impacts corporate change projects.
- Instinctively show that leadership
is not a position. It is about influence or having the power to change or
to be able to change something within their sphere of influence.
- Show that they are responsible for
their performance and that of the organisation, their Team, and their
staff.
- Take pride in their role and skills
and know that if they do not deliver, they let themselves, their Team, and
their organisation down.
- Know that if a team wins, it is not
because of one person but due to everyone within the group, and develop
this attitude in their staff, teams and across their organisation.
- Build a high-performance ethos
where everyone helps bring out the best in each other, knowing their role
is to produce more leaders, not followers.
- Have high enthusiasm for their work
and people across all business aspects.
- Are genuinely invested in
increasing the performance of the organisation, its profitability, and its
customer service offering.
- Dedicate their efforts to drive
projects or work assignments, see them through to the end and ensure that
all aspects of their duties or tasks are perfect, down to the smallest
detail.
- Pay great diligence and will not
skip parts of an assignment or task to reach a completion date.
- Take calculated risks and do not
fear failure as they take the occasional step backwards on the road to
perfecting the performance of themselves, their Team, and their business.
Staff within high-performing
organisations can decide about their projects and how to use their
capabilities. Making the necessary decisions without asking anyone in authority
for permission allows high-performing Directors and Team Leaders to produce extraordinary
results.
In high-performing
organisations, Directors and Team Leaders become ingrained in group
cohesiveness, get along, and provide help whenever possible. They step in
immediately with any problem or issue to pick up the slack.
However, the essential
characteristic of all high-performing Directors and Team Leaders is that they
always perform beyond the highest levels of performance and achievements. They
possess a united vision of the organisation and its values. They are aware of the
importance of actively working towards upholding them.
Additional articles can be
found at People Management Made Easy. This site looks at people
management issues to assist organisations and managers in increasing the
quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of their services and products to the
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