Focus on Results
Motivate movement. Aim for the difference that drives strategy and purpose within your organization. Authenticity must intersect with implementation and interests to deliver real value and lasting impact.
In our work with companies, institutions, and social enterprises, success is strongly linked to responsibility and citizenship. Each step forward leads towards a more well-thought-out environment and higher degrees of collaboration. Leveraging data is essential, and translating figures and numbers into measurable actions are necessary for reaching goals.
Clarity of objectives, well-defined roles, and simplicity in messaging carve smoother pathways for exceeding benchmarks. Building high performing organizations takes the alignment of leadership and developing well skilled, trained, and inspired teams. Increasingly, attracting and retaining the most capable individuals has become tougher. Culture matters. Sustaining large-scale change requires substantive engagement and adaptability.
Promoting success at every level of the organization begins with Focusing on Results, Embracing Creativity, and Leveraging Perspective to positively boost capabilities, accountabilities, and operational performance.
Focus on Results
Data best shape the narrative of the outcome. Beneficial solutions, real assets, and value creation are paramount to relationships and organizational growth.
Today, for both short-term and long-term strategic advantage, organizations must produce. Metrics defining wins may vary given circumstances and unexpected shifts in the environment. However, setting expectations yields distinctly better results, and leaders focused equally on results and people for capturing more significant opportunities. Our clients have sought guidance for measuring and accelerating progress on critical priorities. Outcomes driven organizations are rigorous, demanding—and effective. Quantitative goal setting requires levels of persistence and intensity that are difficult to maintain over long periods. High performing organizations have learned to deploy emerging technologies, more efficient communications better, and build agile teams to sustain results-oriented culture.
Qualitative feedback and ongoing dialogue identify potential problems quickly. Open channels of communication that filter information for relevance and threat to execution are essential to selecting the ideal people and knowing their strengths and weaknesses.
We recently conducted a qualitative assessment for a large hospital system concerned with the impact worker fulfillment had on patient care and hospital incident rates. We defined fulfillment as an employee’s overall sense of purpose both inside and outside of the workplace, and whether or not employee actions aligned with processes meant to protect patients. Our analysis revealed that the lower worker sense of fulfillment was the greater the risk for hospital incidents and poorer patient care. Workers expressed during focus groups and individual interviews that their sense of fulfillment in the workplace was directly associated with feeling there were safe and confidential channels for communicating risks. Qualitative measurement further showed the importance of nurturing soft skills, fostering opportunities for mastery, and giving meaningful rewards in strengthening overall sense of purpose.
Identifying the right values requires productive dialogue and extensive engagement. Establishing quantitative expectations of performance and providing proper portals for exchanging purposeful feedback and information is key to getting results. Armed with a deeper understanding of the association between workplace culture and day-to-day activities, results-oriented individuals, teams, and leadership can achieve measurable goals.
Adopt Creativity
Creativity is the spearhead of innovation. Abstract, far-reaching, and cross-industry ideas fuel innovative capacity, and this pollinates individual and organizational thought.
Bigger and brighter ideas make a difference. Proactive leadership invests in continuous improvement with a wealth of information drawn from creative thinking and experimentation. The ends and means of successful organizations and institutions are threaded together by robust insights. An ever-changing landscape of application, terms, and infrastructure foster an open systems culture that, when appropriately managed, can produce a competitive edge.
Investments in human capital and potential, as well as alignment with technology and new ways of building teams, can fuel an organization's innovative capacity. Ongoing feedback is essential, and supportive platforms where dialogue isn't viewed as a trap for impulsive decision making are best. Leaders and managers are encouraged to structure an interactive environment where ideas inform decisions and rewards demonstrate an appreciation for unconventional thinking, which yields results.
In a workshop conducted with Deans, leading researchers, and tenured faculty, we facilitated discussions built around creativity using C-Sketching and graphic recording. Key topics were leadership, mentoring, and interprofessional collaboration. Creative energy infused the meetings where we also added games and freewriting. All together, sketch boarding, brainstorming, and visual mind mapping complemented one another and brought fuller concepts to the forefront. Each participant received a customized graphics solution built around their unique questions and challenges. They took back with them to their respective universities and non-profits a wealth of information, tools, and actionable insights derived from a mix of perspectives out of ordinary thinking.
Organizational creativity spurs refreshing authenticity. Receptive internal communications and spaces for learning, constructive criticism, and experimentation strengthen organizational creativity.
Leverage Perspective
Diversity of perspective lies at the heart of an organization’s ability to achieve results. Cultivating and managing distinct and even opposing viewpoints increases the value of human capital and improves workforce effectiveness.
Talent comes from all backgrounds and experiences. Organizational purpose inspires new ways of working and requires mining the best capabilities of individuals. Building trust amongst team members is one of the first steps to leveraging the diversity of perspectives. Clear expectations for inclusion and accountability for shared responsibilities provide the framework for a results-oriented work environment. Threatening biases and overlooked weaknesses lead to unchecked mistakes that raise risks and undermine leadership.
In our work of providing organizations with insight on diversity and inclusion, we focus on reinvention built on relevance. Where organizations may already be doing well in achieving diversity benchmarks, we identify where vulnerabilities remain and the potential consequences of the absence of attention and action. Uniformity in thinking, gaps in competence, and lack of transparency are often the biggest threats to advancing diversity goals. Feeling represented and heard is important in the context of the workplace and vital to attracting talent. Identifying the demographic makeup of a company is relatively easy. However, distinguishing the ideological composition and cultural tendencies that impact effective collaboration, productivity, and profitability is far more complicated and requires the right strategy.
In partnering with companies, non-profits, and social service agencies for training and development activities, we prioritize performance and metrics for success and the roles leveraged diversity plays in reaching goals. In doing, so our aim is helping organizations find the right balance between values and outcomes.
