Delta Associates has broad experience in organizational audits. Call Jack Speer @ 512-498-9780 or email jspeer@delta-associates.com.
Organizational Audits Help You See the Flames . . . Before They Burn the Company
Organizations sometimes experience cascading problems and issues that come in rapid-fire succession in multiple parts of the organization and suddenly engulf everything. These issues become so numerous, complex and fastdeveloping that they take on a life of their own and become a virtual title wave. In these cases day-to-day executive decisions can’t be rapid enough to solve the issues. It is at this point that perfectly viable organizations begin to flounder and to be in jeopardy. Organizations need a general systems and culture audit in a very short timeframe in order to produce the full picture of how issues arise, spread through organizations and take on a life of their own, so that they can be solved.
Organizations must have an audit process specifically for the organization to understand the complex processes of what’s working and what’s not–and what will be likely to sink the organization if it is not solved. If you only audit your finances, the lack of an organizational audit will still sink you as fast as a cash flow crisis.
Turning “Ad Hocracy” into Strategy
Few organizations understand that their organization works or doesn’t work based on the way it is designed. Executives often look at individual problems as they come up in the moment and deal with single issues. Customers get lost and are never found, but nobody connects this to processes. Emails are sent to employees worldwide about procedures, but nothing changes. Someone within or without the organization understands the problem and could fix it quickly, but there is as little likelihood they’ll be heard as someone trapped under an avalanche in an unknown location has the chance of being rescued.
Senior management may be brilliant decision makers, but you need more than ad hoc, in the moment fixes. What if purchasing makes it impossible for product development to happen because purchasing procedures reflect risk aversion more than opportunity? What do you do if accounting is controlled by entrenched power that reflects the slow speed of the 20th Century? If there is a huge body of intractable problems, you need a broad organizational audit to surface the critical organization-killing issues and fix them.
The Delta Associates Approach
- Connecting with senior management/executives. Delta Associates maintains peer relationships with executives throughout the country. We are counselors and advisors to executives at the highest level. We connect personally with them, their strategy, and management style. We begin by understanding the organization from the viewpoint of senior management.
- Understanding the organization from the inside out. With few assumptions and pre-conceived assumptions we develop an understanding of the organization based on its internal documentation, its external perception, and the fundamental dashboard the organization uses to measure success.
- Assembling the audit team. We use the term “audit” to signify a fact-based study of the organization’s system and culture that allows senior management to identify how to solve critical organizational issues with actionable recommendations that will be successful in their practice. Our audits are collaborative and focus on solving issues. Our audit team leaders are Carol Kallendorf, Ph.D. and Jack Speer. Other team members include organizational development experts, systems analysts, accountants, organizational researchers, executive coaches, and team facilitators.
- Developing the organizational analysis. In medical terms, an organizational analysis is the diagnosis. A mistaken diagnosis in a serious medical issue can mean very serious consequences. Delta Associates’ basic expertise, product, and service is our ability to diagnose organizations accurately. What’s keeping us from being as healthy as we need to be? What do we do to achieve health? Our analysis/diagnosis will be based on understanding the organization through documentation and interviews with the key players.
- Facilitation and implementation. We produce data for a successful initiative in the organization that produces a high performance organization in the areas that are critical to success. We will do this through one-on-one debriefings with senior management, facilitated sessions, and communications to the organization.