3 tips to improve organizational health and management
Have you ever shown up to volunteer with a church or organization and felt out of place, unsure of what to do, or so invisible that you were sure if you walked out, no one would notice at all?
My family and I experienced this one evening as we showed up to pack and distribute food to families who had been hit hard by the effects of the coronavirus. We arrived to volunteer at a stuffy, overwhelming room filled with piles of food, not organized yet, with masked workers shuffling stacks of inventory back and forth. Not quite sure who was in charge and even more unsure about where we fit in, we asked anyone who looked our way, “What would you like us to do?” Hand gestures and muffled answers signaled, “Grab those boxes” or “Move these apples from here to there,” so we tackled our jobs gladly but were back in ten minutes asking again, “What would you like us to do now?”
For all our intentions of wanting to do good, it ended in discouraging defeat. I left feeling as if we had wasted our time going and guilty for not having contributed more.
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As I began to think about this experience, I couldn’t help but to draw parallels between it and how many employees deal with these feelings and situations daily in the workplace. I know I sure have, which is one of the reasons I am so passionate about organizational health and helping managers and leaders connect the dots between what they think is happening in their organization and what their employees are actually experiencing.
1. Clarity is everything
One time my boss handed a piece of mail to me with this instruction: “Find out why we get this.” So I called the 800 number and said, “My boss wants to know why we get this.” She clicked around for a few seconds and concluded that she wasn’t sure why we were still receiving the notice when our activity on the account had been dormant for some time. She suggested that we cancel the account, and I agreed to her professional recommendation. I left a note for my boss that said it had been taken care of, the account was canceled.
Perhaps you can sympathize with my near heart attack as he received the note and stoked my panic, “What do you mean the account was canceled? That’s not what I meant!” As it turns out, I had authorized the cancellation of an account with the IRS for which we paid taxes every year in another state. How in the world was I supposed to have known what he wanted with a directive like the one he gave me?
Employees show up wanting to do good, but directions must be clear for tasks and goals to happen correctly. Here’s a tip for all of us: If we think that we’ve been clear, we probably haven’t. Not a coincidence, then, that noted author and organizational health pioneer Patrick Lencioni assigns three of his four disciplines to building a healthy organization as follows: 1. Build a Cohesive Leadership Team; 2. Create Clarity; 3. Overcommunicate Clarity; 4. Reinforce Clarity.
Clarity is never overrated. Be clear with what you mean. Talk in complete sentences. Ask the person if they understand what you said. And make sure you know what you mean before you ask someone else to. No employee goes into a task wanting to mess it up, so if something derails, you might want to retrace your steps and ask, “Was I clear?”
2. Vision is essential
If my family had understood why we were moving apples from one table to another and what came next, we wouldn’t have had to ask after every step, “What do you want us to do now?” In other words, if someone had met us at the door and said, “Here’s what we’re doing: we have to clear one side of the room to set up the assembly line for packing the boxes, so if you guys could clear those tables by moving the apples, then you could help build the boxes and stack them where the apples were so that we’re ready to fill the boxes first thing in the morning.”
Voila! Knowing why the apples needed moving and what our next steps would be after we accomplished it would have made us work with more focus and energy because we had somewhere to go after the apples. To be honest, because we didn’t know where the whole thing was headed and kept having to ask questions, I felt like more of a drain on the system than a contributor. This made me ask my husband a little earlier than I should have, “Ready to get out of here?”
In his book The Vision Driven Leader, Michael Hyatt states, “A practical vision is good for more than planning. It’s also good for people, not only in hiring them but also in keeping them aboard once you’ve got them.”
Is it hard to keep good people in your organization? If so, check how you are (or aren’t) conveying vision. If employees can’t see where this thing is headed and empowered to contribute as a full participant, I guarantee you they will find somewhere they can.
3. Value is necessary
It is so easy for leaders to get bogged down in team management and overall vision and mission that they overlook the people around them. Every staff member — from bottom to top — has dreams and incredible giftings that go well beyond the confines of the positions they hold, so I am always amazed at leaders who overlook the potential for innovation and ingenuity that is at their fingertips through the people they are paying.
Well-known pastor and leadership expert Craig Groeschel said that for leaders whose organizations are doing well, “Enjoy it — because you’re going to have to change soon! In other words, if [you] don’t change and adapt in what [you’re] doing, [your] success will not last forever because the world is changing way too fast.” At no other time than the present have we seen this to be true!
There are people in your church or organization who carry answers for tomorrow that weren’t needed yesterday. That’s why possibly you haven’t noticed them yet, but as a leader it is your responsibility and reward to discover who they are and what they bring to the table. The value that you assign to each and every staff member today could be the deciding factor as to whether you exist tomorrow and how well you do when you get there.
Communicating with clarity, casting vision, and valuing the people around you are three basic foundational principals that seem simple but in reality, are missing from many organizations. If unsure whether your organization is one of them, ask your staff. Give them room to describe what it’s like to work for you with an open heart and mind and be willing to make changes. The results will be immeasurable for you and your organization.
Stacey March works as a Transition Liaison for a non-profit religious organization. She lives in Culpeper, Virginia, with her husband and three children. She holds a Master of Human Services Counseling & Executive Leadership from Liberty University and a Master of Music from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. Connect with Stacey on Facebook and Instagram @stacey_march3
