How Healthy is Your Company?

By The GLO Group.

Your company’s internal health will determine whether it will last. 

It’s not enough to sell a great product or service to build a successful business. Profitable companies develop long-term strategies and short-term goals that can be executed by their talent. To do that requires having a healthy organization. And healthier organizations outperform their competition. 

What is organizational health and why is it important? 

Managing your company’s health is as important as managing your P&L. It’s more than your company culture or employee engagement. Organizational health is when the company can align around a common vision, execute that vision, yet continue to evolve through innovation while maintaining that commitment to the vision. It can sustain no matter the leader, nor the circumstance. When a company is healthy, employees perform better resulting in improved processes, innovation, increased revenue, long-term customers and continued growth. 

Think of high-performing athletes. To improve and maintain their performance, they engage in all kinds of methods. Those habits help them perform in the most competitive and stressful environments, avoid injury and lengthen their careers. It takes commitment and belief to achieve greatness. The same can be said for high-performing companies. 

There are many roads to greatness, but all of them require a commitment to clear and effective communication. You may think the communication within your organization is on point, but chances are there are big opportunities for improvement. Take a moment and ask yourself: Are there silos within your organization? Do you sometimes feel that the left arm doesn’t know what the right arm is doing? Are there locations/branches within your company that ‘get it’ and those that don’t? Does it seem at times that for every one step forward, you’re taking two steps back? Or are you doing well, but know that if you could just get everyone on the same page you could be doing even better? 

According to a study conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, poor communication leads to 44% of projects not being completed on time, 31% low employee morale, 25% of missed performance goals, and 18% in lost sales. The most frequent communication barrier? The human condition of having different styles of communication.   

The impact of poor or ineffective internal communication is significant. So, what can company leaders do? When looking at your organization, consider the following: 

• What kind of coaching do you have in place for your leadership team? 
• How transparent is your organization in sharing vision and strategy?  
• Are communication skills measured as part of employee KPIs?  
• How frequently does your organization engage in team building activities focused on improving communication and developing trust? 

While there are other important elements that contribute to the health of your organization, in one way or another they are all rooted in the style, frequency and clarity of your internal communication. This applies to peer-to-peer employees, up and down the organizational chart, department to department and employee to customer. 

You may be thinking that creating a healthier organization sounds like a great idea but seems too heavy of a lift. Or perhaps you don’t see it as a necessity to achieving short-term goals. Both thoughts are misguided. Rather than being a distraction, a focused health-improvement plan actually helps your company achieve short-term goals. And it’s easier than you think.  

Working healthy is really doing what you’re already doing – just differently. The work is simply reshaping how your company connects, engages and communicates with employees. It’s being able to convey your company’s vision that inspires employees to act in its best interests. Most importantly, it’s about adopting a more innovative and effective style of leading, executing and innovating. Committing to and working on your company’s health works, quickly and for the long term.