Whether you’re thinking about selling your business or just looking for greater stability, there are several key tools that can help. I often say, millions are made by pennies. Meaning that our greatest profitability doesn’t come from the maybe one great invention, it comes from a well-designed culture that supports the team members for the most efficient work, communications, and the ability to document and support change, all saving the organization millions overtime through effective resource use.
I like to share the small incremental changes that the aluminum can industry experienced over many years. Take for example the aluminum cans of the past and present.
Ah, the cans of our childhood. Who remembers these? You can see that the can is completely straight, and of course we all remember the pop tab – and the bleak warning, “don’t put it in the can, you might choke on it”!
Over the course of many years, the aluminum can industry made several changes to the overall can structure to support the reduction of aluminum usage, saving the industry millions of dollars – all through pennies. It’s also a perfect example of how an organization can function as a well-oiled machine, with teams working together towards a common goal. Compare to the more contemporary version:
The savings was made through the gradual reduction in aluminum over time and with solid processes and commitment.
How do we make cultural change that sticks so you can be successful in your growth, profitability, and potential sale? Here are three tools that support growth and change using data and documentation to ensure success.
1. Organizational cultural assessment:
Our modern organizations are multifaceted. We have the complexity of multiple people (i.e., personality styles, learning needs, motivational preferences), multiple business or operational units (i.e., marketing and finance), and culture. How do you know where your organizational opportunities lie?
The assessment measures the eight (8) functional areas of culture:
1. Purpose and goals
2. Roles
3. Organizational or team processes
4. Team relationships
5. Organizational relations
6. Problem solving
7. Passion and commitment
8. Organizational knowledge and learning
A small shop in Tacoma with strong values in quality and customer service used the assessment to get a clear understanding of their cultural needs. Results showed that the lack of processes and structures was contributing to poor organizational and team relationships. The good news is, and the assessment shows this as well, is that their shop had very high scores in their purpose and goals, passion and commitment, and overall role clarity. We were able to put a solid plan in place because we had the data to identify the exact need.
2. Organizational Design:
I cannot say enough about the importance of organizational design. I have seen significant challenges and cost among organizations who’s leaders have not looked at their organization as whole functioning system. Here are just a few:
Loss of venture capital that shut down an entire business of 75 employees,
More than once, I have seen employees hired set up important functions, then leave with a lot of proprietary information,
A small business owner gave his long-time employee the keys to the kingdom. When she got mad and left the business, she left a litany of destruction in her path.
John Hanscom, CEO of Truit – an IT security company, is also a strong advocate of organizational design. His message is that good design is one of the best ways to protect the digital security of your organization. As I always say, never underestimate the creativity of a dis-engaged team member, John’s example was an angry employee who changed all of the passwords prior to departing. Fortunately for good systems, previous data was able to be fully restored by John’s company.
John Hansman of Truit and myself presenting on the value of systems, Sept 9, 2024
These are examples of large-scale mishaps, there are plenty of examples of excessive cost overruns due to a lack of structure. Like, the employee who doesn’t know how much solution to use in the cleaning process. Not only is there a significant cost lost in supply overrun --in pennies, but there is also a risk to quality outcomes and safety.
In addition, the process of developing organizational structure to this degree helps to identify barriers, scaling, improves communication, and helps to reduce conflict. Insurance companies love it’s ability to reduce liability and buyers are over the moon at how well structured and efficient operations are with good design. This is also a very helpful process to ensure that new functional units can be added with minimal fuss.
3. Change management scorecard:
Large-scale change typically involves significant costs. Be it an IT system change, merger, or acquisition change management is a must. But, can you measure change? The answer is yes, we can!
Our unique score card allows us to determine specific barriers, target communication, or provide additional support during a complex change. We often forget about the impacts to our team members when introducing something new. The scorecard can easily identify change effectiveness among:
Leadership, organizational, people, process, data, and technical change management challenges.
And, allows us to highlight very specific targets to maintain costs and forward progress.
We can easily asses which functional areas and managers need more support to facilitate and sustain the change. As soon as we see a dip in metrics, we can provide additional support to get the specific area back on track.
These are crucial areas of change management to ensure that your organization not only functions at its best during a change initiative, but the change is sustained over time. When combined with other tools, like the role to process matrix it also provides a clear training path that can save thousands of dollars.
When it comes to the value of your organization don’t guess! If you’ve been wondering where your pain points are, or are looking for clarity and direction to make course corrections, the Archetype Learning Solutions organizational assessments and tools can pinpoint exactly where and what is needed to get your organization on track and working as a whole unit.
We offer white papers on our organizational assessment, organizational design, and our change management toolkit. Each offers specific examples of real organizations who have used these tools to add value, maximize profits, reduce unnecessary waste, keep projects on target, and so much more.
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