Organizational Excellence Programs
Turning a mission or vision statement into an organization excellence program to make the statement real is of interest to a growing number of organizations. Corporate, religious and leadership scandals in recent years have raised both concerns and expectations about meaningless statements of organizational values and beliefs. It is no longer acceptable to make such statements but not act upon them. People will not believe them or follow them until they know what the statement says is real — that is, the statement is being implemented.
Many organizations have fairly complex mission and vision statements in terms of the number of potentially actionable elements they contain. Our commentary on Organizational Excellence offers some examples of what these statements often contain and the difficulty that vague terms may present. To be able to act upon an element, it must be measurable and it must offer some practical ways of achieving it. Otherwise, the element should be dropped from the statement or the statement should be communicated as a slogan.
If your organization is truly committed to achieving its vision or mission, then you need to consider creating an organizational excellence program. The steps in general are:
1. Define organizational excellence operationally
2. Establish a baseline (where are we now?)
3. Develop strategy and action plans
4. Execute, track and assess.
These steps are described in more detail in An Organizational Excellence Process page that outlines how you might build your program.
Our Services
An organizational excellence program is nearly always a major strategic program since it will generally deal with fundamental aspects of the organization and its functioning. We can provide support in any or all of these program activities:
¥ Facilitating a process to help your top people reach a consensus on a practical, inspiring definition for organizational excellence.
¥ Process facilitation support to help you develop a sound plan of action.
¥ Action planning and implementation support to relieve your top people of much of the chore of follow-up, progress reporting, and results assessment.
If you have questions or would like to discuss a facilitated excellence definition process for your organization, please contact us.