Identifying
and resolving organisational issues dramatically benefits an organisation and
its staff. The quicker an organisation resolves administrative matters, the
sooner it can create a healthier workspace and focus its energy and resources
on increasing customer services and sales turnover.
Organisational issues vary in their nature and scope. They can either be strategic or tactical in nature, with their impact on the organisation ranging from severe and critical to insignificant but annoying at the other end of the spectrum. Typical examples might include:
- A civil engineering company failing to manage its supplier invoice processing system, resulting in supply debt building to levels that crippled cash flow and elongated project completion times, further compounding cash flow issues.
- A public sector organisation implementing an inappropriate management structure preventing its private sector trading company from reaching its maximum sales, turnover, and profitability.
- Housing associations failing to ensure that products and services are procured to maximise the efficient use of financial resources, resulting in sub-optimal customer service levels, increased costs, and elevated supply risks.
- A construction equipment importer failing to ensure CE and ISO compliance of its products when adapting them for sale within the UK market, placing equipment operators at severe risk of death or injury when using the construction equipment.
- A dealership placing its field service engineers at risk of death or serious injury by failing to specify and procure personal protective equipment that was compliant with the industry sectors that the dealership operated.
Low-performing organisations are usually managed by Team Leaders whose management actions need to receive the coaching, mentoring, or coordination required at the senior Executive Team or Director level. Low-performing Directors and Team Leaders regularly exhibit actions and behaviours such as:
- The inability or disinclination to deal with controversial issues.
- Subjugating politically tricky decisions to others.
- Rarely working or communicating with direct or indirect teams or functions.
- Not encouraging functions to work together through collaboration.
- Allowing silo working conditions to propagate across an organisation.
- Not leading or taking the initiative with performance-improvement projects.
- Failing to communicate with change managers concerning organisational issues.
- Evolving the consensus that change is unnecessary and not required.
- Leaving functions stagnating and performance to drop to an all-time low.
- Acting for political reasons rather than the general good of an organisation.
- Not asking questions to ascertain basic information.
- Showing little regard for the opinions of others.
- Appearing distracted when dealing with organisational issues.
- Not holding staff or Teams to account for poor performance.
- Ignoring the accomplishments of high-performing staff and Teams.
- Exhibiting toxic behaviour towards people with different opinions or ideas.
Good corporate practices promote a sense of accomplishment and achievement. System and procedural improvements can motivate an organisation in its change management process to evolve incrementally and increase staff motivation to push for new solutions to make proactive changes to avoid the same issues in the future.
Organisations rarely fail because of environmental changes. They fail because low-performing Directors and Team Leaders cannot always communicate and/or are unable or unwilling to deal with change. The most crucial aspect of any business is communicating about and adapting to change, especially as a team.
Low-performing organisations will look to increase their staff to resolve performance issues rather than reviewing their systems and procedures to enable staff and Team Leaders to achieve more with less by working smarter rather than harder.
- Proactively manage the impact of organisational and industrial uncertainty within themselves before they impact corporate change projects.
- Instinctively show that leadership is not a position. It is about influence or having the power to change or to be able to change something within their sphere of influence.
- Show that they are responsible for their performance and that of the organisation, their Team, and their staff.
- Take pride in their role and skills and know that if they do not deliver, they let themselves, their Team, and their organisation down.
- Know that if a team wins, it is not because of one person but due to everyone within the group, and develop this attitude in their staff, teams and across their organisation.
- Build a high-performance ethos where everyone helps bring out the best in each other, knowing their role is to produce more leaders, not followers.
- Have high enthusiasm for their work and people across all business aspects.
- Are genuinely invested in increasing the performance of the organisation, its profitability, and its customer service offering.
- Dedicate their efforts to drive projects or work assignments, see them through to the end and ensure that all aspects of their duties or tasks are perfect, down to the smallest detail.
- Pay great diligence and will not skip parts of an assignment or task to reach a completion date.
- Take calculated risks and do not fear failure as they take the
occasional step backwards on the road to perfecting the performance of
themselves, their Team, and their business.
Staff within high-performing organisations can decide about their projects and how to use their capabilities. Making the necessary decisions without asking anyone in authority for permission allows high-performing Directors and Team Leaders to produce extraordinary results.
In high-performing organisations, Directors and Team Leaders become ingrained in group cohesiveness, get along, and provide help whenever possible. They step in immediately with any problem or issue to pick up the slack.
However, the essential characteristic of all
high-performing Directors and Team Leaders is that they always perform beyond
the highest levels of performance and achievements. They possess a united
vision of the organisation and its values. They are aware of its importance to
actively work towards upholding them.
More articles can be found at Procurement and Supply Chain Management Made Simple. A look at procurement and supply chain management issues to assist organisations and people in increasing the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness in the supply of their products and services to customers' delight. ©️ Procurement and Supply Chain Management Made Simple. All rights reserved.
