Has your organization been witness to this sequence of events?
- Morning brings a crisis to the office
- The team gets distracted from their duties and their time is absorbed with the immediate crisis
- Decisions are made to resolve the short-term crisis as fast as possible
- The crisis passes but leaves various quick fixes that don’t contribute to long-term goals, or worse yet, obstruct them.
Generally speaking, healthy businesses put in place the infrastructure to achieve long term prosperity and therefore face fewer crises in the short term.
Good infrastructure diffuses problems before they get started thereby reducing distractions, saving time, and improving service. Your team focuses on those things that achieve the greatest success at the lowest cost.
When problems do come up, with good infrastructure in place the team can quickly put the various solutions in perspective and choose the one that properly balances the short-term issue with the long-term goals of the organization.
As you’d expect, the results of good infrastructure are higher profits, greater control, decreased risk, and a less stressful work environment.
So what is good infrastructure and how do you get it?
Vision:
Define your BAHG (big, hairy, audacious goal). Get Zen-like and tell us where and what you are going to be in the far off future! Doing so gives your team something to shoot for and provides perspective for every decision.
Mission, Values, Beliefs:
Who you are and what you do. Telling everyone from customers to staff to executives the “who, what, and how” of the organization creates accountability and fosters teamwork.
Strategies:
Now that you have your Vision, Mission, Values, and Beliefs outline the big picture strategies associated with everything you do. Think of it like this: “these efforts are going to get your mission accomplished!”
Management Framework:
Collectively, this is the playbook that defines the tactics you’ll use to execute your strategies. Processes, milestones, and measurement systems are all defined in advance so you can monitor your progress and make adjustments as you move forward.
Tools & Technology:
These are the tools that amplify and support your people, processes, and resources. Investing in the productivity of your people saves time, improves accuracy, and gets better results across the whole team.
Implementation
Transition your team to the new “way” of doing business. Change can be a very disruptive process and should not be taken lightly. Whole books are written on managing change so I won’t attempt to sum up the best practices in two sentences. Hints are easy though. Here’s one: involve your team in every step of the process to get their “buy-in.” Having contributed to the new solution they’re more likely to use it.
Operations
With your new Vision, strategy, protocols, and tools in place “Be” the organization you want to be! It will feel new and different at first but as each day goes by the team will gain more confidence.
Maintenance
Run the protocols you defined in the Management Framework to measure and support your new “way.” Also, continue to involve the whole team by periodically asking “how well this working?” and “what can be improved?”
Now that you know the components of good infrastructure and the roadmap for getting it, the limiting factors are time, expertise & change management. Hire the right consultant to facilitate the transition and this short-term expense will produce many years of gain and a healthy, sustainable, and successful organization.
Brian Pickett helps business & nonprofits with the key components of sustainable growth. Relationships are an organization’s greatest asset; a fact PickettCRM leverages to help organizations expand their customer/donor base using Strategic CRM Solutions. Houston, TX based for more information visit www.PickettCRM.com.
