Research & Organization Management

Challenges to Management
Effective organizations are a challenge. This is why it's hard to reach and sustain excellence. Both leadership and management need to know who they are, where they are going, how they are going to get there and how they will know when they arrive. Do you have a handle on these questions? Has your management team fully discussed them? Have you reached a consensus?

There are several assessment approaches to getting to the bottom of these performance issues. One of several approaches is the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence.

Do some of these challenges sound familiar?

• Staff comments that "management doesn't get it"
• We don't have a consensus on the organization's values 
• Leadership is all in one person's hands
• Corporate social responsibility can't be managed
• We make the same mistakes again and again
• Our community image is either poor or nonexistent

Sets values and expectations for an organization. Differs from management and requires a different set of skills and aptitudes.

• Budgets are not aligned with strategy
• We haven't had a full strategy planning exercise in years
• Things happen that our SWOT exercises never identified
• Staff and customers aren't included in strategic planning
• Without contingency plans, we just react to events

Sets specific performance targets and aligns and deploys organizational resources to achieve those targets.

• We don't have detailed data on customer preferences
• We aren't sure where our new customers will come from
• We rarely can predict market changes that will affect us
• We only hear dissatisfaction after customers leave
• Service standards by customer type seems unnecessary

Identifies your current and future customers, what they need and how you will satisfy these needs.

• We only measure performance by the bottom line
• Each manager measures their own performance
• It's unclear how each unit's performance affects others
• We explain poorly to employees how we perform
• Decisions are based on experience, not just facts

Specifies how you measure, analyze, and improve performance across your organization.

• We don't know if staff turnover is "high" or not
• We don't think satisfaction affects overall performance
• We can't afford more than 1-2% of revenue for training each year
• We don't have a respected complaint/suggestion system
• Pay and benefits are about average for our area/industry

Defines how manage job design, work systems, staff development and employee satisfaction.

• We don't have "key" processes - they're all important
• We adapt processes when needed, but don't plan for this
• It's unclear how support processes affect performance
• We don't collect/analyze data on process performance
• We pick suppliers on price, not long-term performance

Shows how you design and manage product and service processes, internal support functions and relationships with suppliers and partners.

• We can't show 3 to 5-year steady performance improvement
• We don't know how we compare to our competitors
• It is not clear if employee satisfaction is getting better
• We couldn't show whether our strategy is working or not
• The data needed to prove effectiveness aren't available

Demonstrates your sustained levels and trends of performance in the above areas, compared to your peers and world-class organizations.