The Three Critical Elements You Must Include in Your Organizational Assessment

As the CEO or Senior Executive Driving Double Digit Productivity, Your Transformation Strategy Must Incorporate these Three Critical Elements

Research has shown 70% – 90% of business transformations fail to achieve and sustain the breakthrough results the leadership team desired.  This is a dismal statistic, and the source of my motivation over the past 2 ½ decades to demonstrate the elements that are critical for a Successful and Sustainable Business Transformation that will deliver double-digit productivity year over year.  Developing the optimal transformation strategy for your company starts with a comprehensive organizational assessment.  The three critical elements you must include in your assessment and strategies to drive sustainable breakthrough change in your organization are organizational alignment, supportive culture, and excellence in execution.

These three elements each follow a maturity path as companies approach world-class performance that I refer to as the Transformation Curve^TM.   Clearly understanding where your company is today with reference to these three maturity paths is critical to defining the best strategy for your company.    To support this, we developed the Transformation Curve Assessment^TM based on the Transformation Curve^TM maturity path as the first step in designing this customized strategy for breakthrough that will work best for any organization.  I discuss the Transformation Curve^TM maturity path in detail in my chapter within the book Elite Business Systems: Insider Strategies of Industry Leading Consultants

The “secret sauce” that weaves these three elements together includes the customized sequence of implementation activities, commitment and dedication of your entire leadership team, and integration of the Science of Success principles. Customizing your sequence of implementation activities is critical because no one company is exactly like the next.  Here are the three critical elements explained:

Organizational Alignment

The first element that must be present in your strategy to drive sustainable breakthrough change in your company focuses on your organizational alignment. Your breakthrough change occurs when the organization is aligned and all employees rowing in the same direction.  The areas of organizational alignment that are critical to “get right” include referencing your Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Goals in daily thinking. This includes ensuring your metrics, that each group is held accountable to and are aligned to support your breakthrough change, and are supportive to other areas of the company. Also, focusing your HR systems and practices around employee development and retention.

During your assessment we may find that your company is further along the maturity curve in one part of organizational alignment than other areas.  This is natural and to be expected.  We will adjust your strategy to account for this.

Supportive Culture

The second element that must be present in your strategy to drive sustainable breakthrough change in your company focuses on your supportive culture. When we assess your company’s culture we focus on the patterns of behaviors (actions) that are occurring at each level in the organization and across locations.

Your current culture is most heavily influenced by your leadership and embodied by the entire workforce. Leadership beliefs and behaviors are critical in supporting the breakthrough change process and sustaining the results over the long term. When working with visionary companies driving change, we typically find both positive and negative aspects within the culture. I am a strong believer that if you do not design your culture it will design itself.

The key is designing and implementing the culture shifting strategy that fits within your company. Each company is unique and where you start is dependent on where your company is on the Transformational Curve^TM.   During the culture section of the assessment, we typically find sub-cultures that differ significantly.  This is more common in larger companies such as $1Billion in revenue and up. However, we have found this in divisions as small as $130M.  Do not be surprised if we uncover this in your company.  We have addressed this issue more than once within companies we’ve worked with.

Excellence in Execution 

The third element that must be present in your strategy to drive sustainable breakthrough change in your company is excellence in execution. There are five categories that make up the excellence in execution element. They are:

• Strategy Engagement Execution^TM (SEE^TM)
• Science of Success
• Win’s Conscious Leadership
• Winning Team
• Lean Thinking

All five of these areas work together to define the operational standards and leading-edge tools and techniques required to drive high performance in your company. The primary driver for these five areas is SEE^TM (Strategy Engagement Execution^TM), which is the approach that aligns the entire organization towards achieving the goals and vision defined by your executive team.

The time-phased Strategy Engagement Execution^TM (SEE^TM) approach is a powerful vehicle to help you drive better results through a methodology to increase focus and accountability. The SEE^TM methodology provides the leverage within your team to blow out your strategy by cascading the company’s goals down to the point of impact, defining the metrics and action plans at this point of impact, and assign owners that are driven and accountable to achieve these metrics.

Conclusion

Remember, the “secret sauce” that weaves these three elements together includes your customized sequence of implementation activities, commitment and dedication of your entire leadership team, and integration of the science of success principles. Customizing your sequence of implementation activities is critical because no one company is exactly like the next.

You can read more about The Transformation Curve^TM in my chapter in the book Elite Business Systems: Insider Strategies of Industry Leading Consultants  Once you have read the chapter I would invite you to take the Transformation Curve Assessment^TM to find out where you organization is today.

About the Author: David Tweedt

David Tweedt is President of Win Enterprises, LLC. He helps visionary business leaders create a sustainable performance focused organization focused on profit growth. Win’s proven strategy and execution process integrates the inner game (Science of Success) with cutting edge business transformation strategies with a goal of doubling your profits.

Industry-Leading Guarantee:  Our commitment to you:  When you follow our recommendations, your annual Return on Investment will be greater than 100% your investment with us or we’ll keep working with you until it is.

David is also contributing author of the National Best Selling Book – Elite Business Systems: Insider Strategies of Industry Leading Consultants & International Best Selling Book – Lightening Growth: Success Strategies for Today’s Leaders.

If you are not achieving the results you want, then contact David to learn more about how he and his team can help you maximize your results. Learn more at www.CompleteBusinessTransformation.com Contact David: Support@CompleteBusinessTransformation.com