By self-admittance, organizational health is a little bit
difficult to define and is even more difficult to measure. The author states that “organizational health
is about integrity, but not in the ethical or moral way,” and that some
characteristics of a healthy organization include “minimal politics, minimal
confusion, high morale, and low employee turnover.” The author explains that having organizational
health does not require “intelligence or sophistication” but rather “uncommon
levels of discipline, courage, persistence, and common sense.” Thus all companies, if they want it, can be a
healthy organization and benefit from what the author terms the advantage.
This book gives multiple points, strategies, or areas of
emphasis in order to make an organization healthy and I want to list a few
below that I believe to be some of the most critical.
#1 Communication
Communication is so
important because how we communicate, when we communicate, and what we
communicate forms the opinions of others about our organization. Because it is so important, every time a
leader communicates it should align with the organization’s goals, values, and purpose
for existing so that communication is always consistent and constructive. Communication must bring clarity and must be
frequent. The author suggests employees
won’t believe their leaders really mean something until they have said it 7
times. And communication cannot be
delegated to others from the top leaders.
The author believes that communication in most instances is the reason
for most organizational problems. Many
companies and many people in life fail to value words and whether we like it or
not, our communication tells stories and becomes reality to others. Thus healthy organizations are great at
communicating.
#2 Values
Every healthy organization has to have a set of values that
are so important to them, they drive all decisions. Everything an organization does must reflect
them. These values guide employee
behavior and provide clarity to all in the organization. And the best organizations are completely
intolerant of violations of them. Even hiring,
and termination decisions should be based around these values. The author states that keeping a strong
performer that does not live the values sends a message to everyone else that
the organization really isn’t that serious about them. Truly living up to values makes an
organization healthy.
#3 Top Priority
Too often to many organizations get weighed down with too
many objectives or goals or “top priorities” that they do not obtain the “level
of focus they need to succeed” and they end up doing a bunch of things in a
mediocre way. Healthy organizations
learn to focus on what is most important NOW.
Having a very clear top priority that everyone across the organization
is focused on will help the company have superior success. Companies must frequently ask themselves “if
we accomplish only one thing during the next month, or 6 months (etc.), what
would it be,” and then they must ensure all are made aware of the most
important priority for the timeframe selected.
This top priority should become a “rallying cry”, leaving no room for
confusion or disagreement. Having one
top priority improves organizational health.
These are three of the many important things “healthy
organizations” are good at and thus what makes them healthy. At the conclusion of the book, the author
emphasis how organizational health blesses the lives of so many people. Not only are workers happier but also their
families, the customers, and everyone who has any interaction with the company. I really enjoyed this book as I believe it
provides a lot of great insight in to how to run a successful organization.
To see how I rated this book, click here.
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