Your Organization Needs Its “Groove” Back — Here’s How to Make It Happen 

Do you feel as if your organization is struggling to keep up with the rapid changes happening all around it? Has it lost its “groove” to more nimble, innovative competitors?

Or is it suffering from something more difficult to define? A lack of purpose or meaning, possibly?

Organizations founder for all sorts of reasons. While the temptation to assign blame can be strong, these situations call for level-headed, resolute leadership rather than finger-pointing.

It’s not as if history isn’t replete with examples of successful turnarounds, or well-documented instances of new, forward-thinking leaders putting their organizations on stronger footing. For example, the leader of the Scientology religion, David Miscavige, took a number of visionary steps early in his tenure to secure his growing religion’s future and ensure that it could fulfill its mission for decades to come.

He’s not the only one. And even if you don’t aspire to lead such a large, influential organization, you have the power to effect positive changes among your own flock — changes that, one hopes, last well beyond your tenure.

Here’s where to begin.

Get to Know the People You Serve

Note the framing here: “the people you serve.” Not the people who serve you, or serve at your pleasure.

Both might be technically correct, but thinking of yourself and your lieutenants as somehow apart from your organization’s rank-and-file will put you in a weaker position as you work to transform it. According to Walden University, 56% of workers cite poor management as a key factor in deciding to leave a job.

To overcome this challenge, work on making personal connections with those you lead. Get to know them and they’ll be apt to work harder for you.

“The more forthcoming a manager can be, the more respect he or she will garner from employees. And by being open themselves, managers invite their team members to share concerns and cultivate good communication in the workplace,” Walden says.

Identify and Correct Inefficiencies, Inadequacies and Oddities

Strengthening communication and connection within the workplace is a good first step, but turning around an organization requires more. Eventually, you’ll need to make some difficult decisions that may affect some of your team members’ livelihoods.

These decisions will be easier when they’re data-driven and evidence-based. Start by identifying obvious inefficiencies and deficiencies within the organization’s structure, such as an especially bloated division with internal redundancies or a perennially underperforming business line that’s been kept around in the faint hope that it can improve.

Look for not-so-obvious issues too. Let’s call them “oddities.” A small team whose role nobody can quite ascertain, a sales employee whose performance is held to a different standard than their colleagues’, a reporting chain cut off from the “main trunk” of the business — you get the idea. Your job, now, is to find and correct them before they cause any more trouble.

Reconnect Your Organization With Its Stated Mission (Or Create a New One)

When some 70% of employees say their personal sense of purpose is defined by their work, it’s essential that your organization find its own. This could be the single most impactful step you take to turn things around, in fact.

It might not be as easy as you hope. Many organizations go adrift because they’ve strayed from their original mission — their purpose — to the point that it no longer reflects their long-term goals (or their employees’). If that’s the case for the entity you lead, it’s time to begin the work of developing a new mission. And that’s a much more involved process than coming up with a fresh slogan over a lunch meeting — think months, not days.

Build an “Accountability Superstructure”

Every leader worth their paycheck understands the importance of individual-level accountability. Fewer realize how tricky it can be to achieve and enforce it in a modern, professional workplace.

“Holding employees accountable is challenging, especially when trying to do so in a supportive way,” say the experts at HR Cloud. “No one wants to be seen as a micromanager or to make the workplace feel like it’s filled with unnecessary pressure.”

To create a comprehensive accountability “superstructure” within your organization, HR Cloud recommends setting clear expectations for every role and task, documenting goals to create a reference point, fostering open communication, regularly checking in with your reports and providing feedback, and providing reasonable and empathetic support along the way.

Surround Yourself With People Who Know More Than You

Humbling? Sure. But it’s important to recognize and admit when you don’t know everything.

Your “council of experts” can come in some part from the existing ranks of your organization’s workforce, but you’ll most likely want to bring in outside experts too. With the cost of recruiting top talent running three to four times the position’s salary, according to SHRM, contract-based consultants could be a more cost-effective way to get this done in the short term.

Keep Close Tabs on Your Progress

Remember, your organization’s turnaround should be evidence- and data-based. To ensure that it remains so, keep close watch on your progress toward the goals you’ve set for yourself, your executive team, and the rank-and-file teams they lead. Checking in on a weekly or even daily basis, and adjusting as needed, gives you the best chance of durable success.

Final Thoughts

As every leader discovers sooner or later, quick fixes are few and far between. The project of restoring purpose and vigor to your organization is no different. Although the specifics of your situation will determine how the effort unfolds, it would be unwise to expect it to do so over a term measured in months. It’s more likely to take years, and perhaps several at that.

Take this not as cause for discouragement but as inspiration that the work you’re undertaking is to be truly transformative. That’s why you do what you do, after all, and why so many of your peers in leadership do what they do too.

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