Decision-Making Best Practice 3 – Broad Commitment

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StrategyDriven Decision Making Article | Broad CommitmentAs stated before, effective decision-making provides the organization with a unified direction aimed at achieving a primary objective and possibly one or more secondary goals. Regardless of the decision’s complexity or its immediacy, the probability of realizing a desired outcome is directly related to the organization’s ability to execute the decision in a deliberate and focused manner. Broad organizational commitment to the decision and its execution is essential to achieving the unified action needed for a successful outcome.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Organizational Accountability Forum

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Accountable organizations are unique creatures; standing out from others because of their superior performance, greater employee loyalty, and higher customer satisfaction. Although the rewards are great, many companies will not embark on the journey to accountability because attaining and maintaining high levels of organizational accountability is extremely difficult.

Organizational accountability exists when all members of the workforce individually and collectively act to consequentially promote the timely accomplishment of the organization’s mission. Examined more closely, this means that:

  • all members of the workforce: Includes executives, managers, and individual contributors. Executives and managers are responsible for holding their subordinates accountable for the effective and efficient conduct of activities supporting mission achievement. Subordinates, through their actions, set an example by which positive pressure is applied to their peers and seniors for greater accountability.
  • individually act: Enough individuals throughout the organization must act accountably in order to achieve the critical mass necessary for the existence of an accountable organization. Some individuals, such as the chief executive officer, must exhibit and reinforce accountable behaviors for the organization to be truly accountable.
  • collectively act: Often, groups of executives, managers, or individual contributors make and execute the organization’s decisions. Under these circumstances, it is critical that the group act in accordance with the organization’s values to accomplish its mission and avoid easy outs and the tendency to fall into a mode of group think.
  • consequentially promote: Accountability cannot exist without both positive and negative consequences. To consequentially promote the organization’s mission implies that individuals and groups will not only act in ways that seek to accomplish the mission but will recognize and reward those who do so exceptionally and appropriately act to minimize behaviors less supportive of the organization’s goals.
  • timely accomplishment of the organization’s mission: For accountability to exist, one must know what is to be accomplished and within what time frame. No one can be accountable for accomplishing an undetermined goal for there is no basis against which to measure their accomplishments. Likewise, a goal that is not bound by time can never be considered to be incomplete or have insufficient progress because the individual or group working toward such a goal has an infinite amount of time to reach it.

Focus of the Organizational Accountability Forum

Materials in this forum explore the key attributes of accountable organizations and why many executives and managers intentionally or unconsciously avoid raising their organization’s accountability. We identify the programs, processes, and actions that can be taken to help promote increased accountability. Finally, we’ll examine the many benefits that accompany higher levels of organizational accountability and why accountable organizations realize them while others don’t. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics critical to establishing a highly accountable organizational culture.

Articles

Principles

Best Practices

Warning Flags

Resources

Books

Recommended Resource – The Accountable Organization

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The Accountable Organization: Reclaiming Integrity, Restoring Trust
by John Marchica

About the Reference

The Accountable Organization: Reclaiming Integrity, Restoring Trust by John Marchica illustrates how executives and managers can build a corporate culture based on integrity, accountability, and trust. Mr. Marchica provides practical methods for building a principled organizational culture through planning, communication, leadership, conflict resolution, and risk taking.

Benefits of Using this Reference

Highly accountable organizations realize several strategic advantages, including the ability to attract and retain the best talent and to more readily recognize and seize upon emerging business opportunities, because of their more engaging and productive work environment. While these rewards are substantial, many executives and managers will not embark on the journey of creating an accountable organization because attaining and maintaining high levels of accountability is extremely difficult.

StrategyDriven contributors believe there exists an interrelationship between an organization’s strategic planning and tactical execution and its level of accountability. We like The Accountable Organization because it illustrates this relationship and provides methods for leveraging planning and execution to build a culture of accountability. Many of the best practice recommendations found on the StrategyDriven website elaborate on the actions recommended in The Accountable Organization; making this book a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Strategic Planning Warning Flag 1 – Business Unit versus Goal-Based Planning

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StrategyDriven Strategic Planning Warning FlagExecutives and managers maximize their company’s value when they focus the efforts of the entire workforce on the organization’s prioritized mission goals and supporting objectives. Some executives and managers, by making the mission measurable, prioritizing those measures, and sharing accountability for identifying and executing the most value adding initiatives, ensure their workforce focuses on those activities that maximize the organization’s overall value. In other organizations, planning and/or execution shortfalls allow the pursuit of initiatives that do not optimally support mission achievement; diminishing the organization’s value creation capacity. While many factors result in misaligned focus at all levels of the organization, one in particular, the failure to align the organization’s programs, budgets, and procedures to the mission’s prioritized goals and supporting objectives is the most devastating.

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Additional Information

The following StrategyDriven recommended best practices are designed to reduce the likelihood of business unit based planning while simultaneously fostering mission goal based planning:

StrategyDriven Contributors have created several illustrations to visually depict the mission to programs, budgets, and procedures alignment. The Strategic Pyramid Model highlights the alignment that should exist between an organization’s mission and its programs, budgets, and procedures. The Strategic Organizational Alignment Model reveals the typical executive and managerial responsibilities associated with identifying, reaffirming, and translating the organization’s mission into goals and objectives and then into programs, processes, and procedures.

About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Evaluation and Control Program Best Practice 1 – Data Synthesis

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StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Best PracticeEvaluation control programs must be credible in order to add meaningful value to the organization. Credibility is built not only by the quality of the data collected but also by the method by which it is collected, how it is combined, and how it is interpreted to create useful information in support of decision-making.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.