You want improve your organization’s improvement system. You want to target things like stakeholder involvement, staff focus, and staff accountability. And you want to start by analyzing what’s currently going on.

Question: What can you do?

Answer: You can take the following self-assessment. Read More...

Want to improve your organization? If so, make sure your staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement. Make sure your staff understand that:

• The purpose of organizational improvement is increasing achievement of the mission.
• Improvement plans target mission achievement.
• When implementing improvement plans, staff are to live out organizational values, use organizational best practices, and collaborate with other stakeholders.

Question: How well do your staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
 
To get an idea of how well your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement, take the following assessment. Rate each item, using the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sometimes • 1: Rarely

___ Staff members understand our values.
___ Staff members understand our mission.

___ Staff members understand our best practices.
___ Staff members understand our improvement plans.
___ Staff members understand the importance of stakeholder collaboration.

___ Staff members understand how values, mission, best practices, improvement plans, and stakeholder collaboration are connected.
___ Staff members understand what’s involved in organizational improvement.


3 questions:

1. How well do you want your staff to understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
2. How can you help your staff better understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
3. What are you going to do?

Bottom line: Pursue excellence. Help your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement. Today.


*To learn more, explore these 5 questions.

Meetings are an important tool you can use to achieve your mission. I’ve participated in good meetings. If you want to participate in good meetings more often, answer this question: What makes a good meeting good? Good meetings are on TARGET in terms of:

• Team purpose
• Assessment
• Results
• Guidelines
• Effective facilitation
• Types of meetings.

To get an idea of how you can make your meetings even more effective, complete the following assessment (download). Use the following scale:

4: Strongly Agree • 3: Agree • 2: Disagree • 1: Strongly Disagree
 
Team purpose
___ Our team’s purpose is documented.
___ Our team’s purpose targets mission achievement.
___ Our team’s purpose is understood by each team member.
___ Our team’s purpose statement is user-friendly.
___ Our team’s purpose is used as the filter for what gets on the agenda.
 
Assessment
___ We assess completion of assigned tasks.
___ We assess meeting effectiveness in terms of team purpose.
___ We assess meeting effectiveness in terms of achievement of targeted results.
___ We assess meeting effectiveness in terms of abiding by meeting guidelines.
___ We use assessment at each meeting.
___ Each team member is involved in assessment.
 
Results
___ We identify results for a given meeting before the meeting.
___ We use the SMART goal format to list our targeted meetings results on our agenda.
___ Our targeted meeting results target mission achievement.
___ We achieve our targeted results at each meeting.
 
Guidelines
___ We developed our meeting guidelines collaboratively.
___ Our guidelines define our desired team dynamics.
___ Our guidelines support the achievement of our team purpose and our mission.
___ Each team member abides by the guidelines.
 
Effective facilitation
___ The facilitation focuses our team on achieving the team purpose.
___ The facilitation focuses our team on achieving the targeted results.

Types of meetings
___ Our team members understand that there are different types of meetings.
___ We use a schedule of different types of meetings to address tactics, strategy, and vision.


Now, ask yourself 4 questions about the data:

1. How many 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s do I have?
2. What satisfies/frustrates me about the data?
3. To improve your meetings, which 1-2 of the 6 TARGET areas could you address?
4. What will I do?

Pursue excellence. Improve your meetings Today.

Staff in Christian organizations face a challenge—to close the gap between the words of the mission statement and the reality of the current situation.

To meet this challenge, staff can do 4 things:

1. Focus on the mission
2. Empower others
3. Work smart
4. Pursue excellence

To what extent do staff in your organization do these 4 things? To find out, take the following self-assessment. Read More...

You want your organization to achieve its God-given mission. To achieve the mission, you want your staff to carry out their job responsibilities, including implementing the strategic plan. And you want your professional development program to better support all of this.

What’s next? Look at the characteristics of your professional development program. To get an idea of how you can improve your organization’s professional development program, take the following self-assessment. Read More...

As an administrator at an international Christian school, you know that staff play a vital role in carrying out the mission. Because your care about your staff, want to be good a steward of the staff God has provided, and want your school to carry out its God-given mission, you ask yourself, “How can we energize, focus, and unleash staff both personally and professionally?”

To find out, take the following self-assessment. Read More...