Assess Situation
Assess Situation — Direction, political alignment, initial organizing.
Where are we now and where do we want to go? If you're like most leaders, you're probably not happy with the status quo and want to make change, but how, and in what direction? Some approaches to defining where you are right now:
-
What do the primary measures of current performance show in terms of Customer Satisfaction, Quality, Financial and People Satisfaction show?
- Run a quick survey of all members of management. "On a scale of 1-10, ...
- How excellent do our customers think we are?
- How good is the quality of what we do?
- How good is the morale of those who work here?
- How good a management team are we?
- If we tried hard, how excellent could we be in a year?
-
These simple questions can be frighteningly accurate, the University of Michigan finding that collective managerial opinion correlates at .85 with more detailed and intensive studies. More importantly, sharing these scores in a meeting can spark some very positive discussion. Create an action list and prioritize the items.
- For a more detailed look at how the organization is doing, have the Organization Performance and Readiness Assessment (OPRA) survey completed by your management team. A courtesy teleconference review of OPRA results can be provided at no charge if you choose—just call us to schedule approximately one hour of time. We'll tell you what we see in your results. (A similar survey Rating Organization Readiness for Change from Fortune could also be used.)
The bottom line is this: Are you satisfied with how your organization is doing? Do you want to make change now, and would the New American Hospital model be similar to what you'd like to accomplish?
It's been said that "The way in is easy, the way out is hard." That is certainly true when committing to the creation of organization excellence. Everybody wants to be excellent; everybody will salute that flag. But are you ready to:
- Work hard, perhaps 10% more hours?
- Have all managers sign a large poster saying they were "committed to organization excellence and will accept nothing less" and then post it in the lobby? To give some flavor of GSM, take a look at The Leaders Credo.
- Tie management pay to performance?
- Have managers reviewed for their excellence by staff?
- Be recertified as a member of the leadership cadre each year based on results?
If your group is not ready, it could be for a variety of good reasons: The press of other work, different priorities, etc. The point is that leaders need to think through what is really possible in their situation. Gold Standard Management is a complete way of doing things, it is infrastructure and culture, and a very challenging approach to living life and doing work. Rather than attempting this mountain many management teams will take a more conservative approach, doing evolutionary or incremental change. As cautionary advice, don't get on this train if you think the organization can't endure the journey. Just as physicians will not undertake high risk surgery on some patients, leaders must assess whether GSM is a good fit for their situation.
So, kick back, think about what you want for yourself. Listen carefully to the voices around you.
Then, make a decision.
Next Steps: pick change agents and plan and organize the work.