Boosting productivity and employee satisfaction by clarifying the organisations purpose and helping people to see their role in achieving it

Lack of communication! No communication! Poor communication!

This is what we hear repeatedly when Strategy Improvers is called in to assist with organisational problems such as low morale, departments not talking to one another, serious mistakes being made and a high turnover of staff.

However, when we probe a bit deeper and ask what do you mean by “poor communication” we almost always find that people are unsure of:

• What their company stands for – what does it really do
• What their own and other departments do
• What exactly their job is.

Some managers don’t believe it! So, we ask them to do this little test.

Take three people who report to you and write out the 10 or 12 main aspects of their job. Then without showing them your list, ask each of them to write down 10 or 12 main aspects that they think their job entails.

What do you think you find?

YES – there are substantial differences!

In a similar way, we often find that departmental structures do not serve the whole organisation and make it difficult to achieve objectives.

Strategy Improvers has solved some pretty major organisational problems by:

• a) Helping managers clarify what each department does and getting agreement from other departments on departmental responsibilities.
• b) Getting managers and employees to re-do job descriptions and keep them up to date and share them with other employees.

These tasks are not difficult but they do take some patience and probing to get clarity.