You are ill. Although you continue as though you’re feeling fine, something isn’t quite right. You see a physician and he runs a series of tests and asks you a host of targeted questions and identifies the root cause: you have a bacterial infection. He prescribes you some antibiotics and recommends rest and lots of fluids to bring the body back to health.
Just like the human body and all organic things, an organisation is a collection of systems with one primary aim: the continued functioning and flourishing of the entire organism, or in this case, organisation. Likewise, for an organisation to remain healthy and fully functioning, its systems must operate cohesively—that is, each part must be functioning optimally for the health of the whole.
This is where the idea of Organisational Cohesion© comes in.
Organisations—similar to the example of an unwell person—are either functioning sub-optimally or are scarcely operating, and they exhibit various symptoms that reveal potential causes.
Such symptoms include:
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Poor or inconsistent service provided or poor customer experience
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Low growth and or burgeoning costs
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Significant amounts of IT downtime
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High rates of staff attrition or absenteeism
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High rates of compliance or regulatory issues
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Significant losses incurred or a tarnished reputation due to poorly managed risks
These symptoms must be considered from the perspective of the whole system and not in silos or from a singular dimension.
This is where most change and improvement programs fail or only partially deliver, because they only target the symptoms rather than identify the key systemic issues that need to be addressed to holistically improve the health of the organisation.
To address the root cause of such issues, organisations, like people, usually consult professionals that are not only specialists in their field, but generalists who can diagnose ailments afflicting and affecting the entire organization.
Organisational Cohesion
[The Why and What]
One approach to this is the Organisational Cohesion Framework (OCF)©. This provides an overview of the health of the entire organisation, with its systems and subsystems. In so doing, organisational cohesion is created between the 7 essential elements (figure 1) that are key to the marked improvement in the overall functioning, alignment, and sustainability of an organization. These elements include your purpose, your strategy, your enablers, your actions, your outputs, your scope and the relationships forged, the prevailing culture and inherent trust built between all levels of the organisation that help to bind each of these elements and their building blocks together.
Just like people, organisations often approach such systemic issues with a “we’re fine as is” or “that’s good enough for now” attitude until they are too big to ignore. By this point, they are required to expend significant time and resources to re-attain equilibrium.
But as they say, a little goes a long way and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Having created the Organisational Cohesion Framework, and having significant experience working with large enterprises, Reveal Consulting Group has the experience, knowledge and capability to advance your organisation. Contact Reveal Consulting Group to start your organisation’s journey to improved health.
Figure 1