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This is a shame because organizational health is different. It’s not at all touchy-feely, and it’s far bigger and more important than mere culture. More than a side dish or a flavor enhancer for the real meat and potatoes of business, it is the very plate on which the meat and potatoes sit. The health of an organization provides the context for strategy, finance, marketing, technology, and everything else that happens within it, which is why it is the single greatest factor determining an organization’s success. More than talent. More than knowledge. More than innovation.
1. Why do we exist? 2. How do we behave? 3. What do we do? 4. How will we succeed? 5. What is most important, right now? 6. Who must do what?
If members of a leadership team can rally around clear answers to these fundamental questions—without using jargon and shmarmy language—they will drastically increase the likelihood of creating a healthy organization. This may well be the most important step of all in achieving the advantage of organizational health.
the leaders of those organizations will almost always tell you that what they were really good at was not necessarily having the right answer, but rather being able to rally around the best answer they could find at the time. This tendency to apply twenty-twenty hindsight to success falsely leads people to think that intelligence and precision, rather than clarity, are key.
I’ve seen among too many leadership teams: a simple failure to achieve clarity because executives are waiting for perfection. In the meantime, confusion reigns, leaders lose credibility, and the organization suffers.
It’s just to say that waiting for clear confirmation that a decision is exactly right is a recipe for mediocrity and almost a guarantee of eventual failure. That’s because organizations learn by making decisions, even bad ones. By being decisive, leaders allow themselves to get clear, immediate data from their actions. As a result, they are often able to change course and defeat their indecisive competitors who, while congratulating themselves for not making a mistake, are too mired in theoretical analysis paralysis to rally around any clear plan.
When an organization announces that it has nine core values including customer service, innovation, quality, honesty, integrity, environmental responsibility, work-life balance, financial responsibility, and respect for the individual, it makes it impossible to use those values to make decisions, hire employees, or enact policies. After all, no action, person, or policy can meet all of those criteria.
How will we make decisions in a purposeful, intentional, and unique way that allow us to maximize our success and differentiate us from our competitors?
