Something isn't working. You've tried the obvious fixes. Everyone has a different explanation, and you want to know what's in the way before you spend again.
Organizational Assessment
A full read on what's in the way — across the whole organization — so your next move isn't a guess.
Book a conversationThirty minutes by video, and it's free.
What you get
- Conversations across the whole organization — the people living the problem, the people around it, and the people with the power to change it — with small-group sessions and a survey where it's needed
- A synthesis of what the problem is, the conditions producing it, and who has the power to change each one
- A report that's hard to explain away, with what it would take to fix and which parts you can take on yourselves
How long
Usually three to nine months, depending on the size of your organization and how much of it the assessment covers.
Everyone's solving a different problem.
What it looks like now
- The fixesA senior hire, a reorg, a new platform, a training for everyone. None of them were wrong. None of them landed.
- The explanationsAsk four people on your leadership team what's going wrong, and you'll get four answers. They use the same words and mean different things.
- The exitsPeople you didn't want to lose have left, and each exit conversation gave you a different reason.
What it usually turns out to be
Each explanation is usually right about one piece. No one person sees all of it, so each fix went after the piece someone could see.
Where you end up
Instead of a different explanation from each leader, your leadership team has one shared understanding of what's in the way.
Each leader can name which part is theirs to change. And before you spend again, you know what it would take to fix, and which parts you can take on yourselves.
How an Organizational Assessment works
Whole Room™ — my change management method
I'm not the only expert in the room.
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Step one of every engagement, and a service on its own
Find what's in the way, across the whole organization
Diagnose the Cage
What you already have
I start by asking how you see the problem, and why you think others see it differently.
Then I read what you already have: the plans, the numbers, the past reports, the documents your people work from. What you've already invested in gets built on, not redone.
What's missing
Then I gather what's missing. I take the questions your own material can't answer and design interviews, small-group sessions and a survey around them.
I host those conversations across the whole organization: with the people living the problem, the people around it, and the people with the power to change it.
What it adds up to
Then I analyze all of it, looking for the connections that are hard to see from the inside: whether what's in the way is skill, will, or what people have around them, and who has the power to change each part.
I bring it back as one report and go through the findings with your whole leadership team, with your decision-makers in the room.
The evidence in it does two jobs: it's how I come to understand what's going on, and it's what makes the report hard to explain away. Each finding shows up in more than one place: in what your people said, in your own numbers, in the documents you work from.
The report says what it would take to fix, which parts you can take on yourselves, and what it couldn't answer.
Then you decide what happens next
In practice
A multi-site nonprofit · told without its name
- Before
- Its coaching program wasn't changing results, and nobody could say why. The organization had put its effort where it had the most reach: more training for the coaches.
- What was in the way
- The coaches were missing things only other leaders could give them: protected time with the people they coached, and site leaders who backed the program. The people who could see that didn't have the standing to raise it.
- After
- I brought the analysis back as one report and asked the leaders what they saw in it. After the first day together, they could name what was in the way.
- By the end, it was clear how much of it was leadership's to own, and they had sorted out which role owned which part and put the work in priority order. I helped them set up the measures to track it, and from there the work was theirs.
FinAbility's Director of Programs, asked how she would describe working with me to another organization:
Any organization looking for a consultant who will both challenge and champion their work would be lucky to have her.
What I need from you
- Your decision-makers in the room when the findings are named.
- Protected time for the people whose view the work needs — on the calendar before the work starts.
- Access to what already exists: the plans, the numbers, the past reports.
Is this the fit?
It isn't if the explanation is already decided — that the people are the problem, and the way things are set up isn't — and what's wanted is an assessment that arrives at it. Or if you're looking for a survey tool or a certified instrument: you want the people who give it.
It is if you want to know what your people are missing. I don't believe people want to do poor work. When results fall short, it tells me there's something they need and don't have: the skill, the will, or what they have around them. A lot of that is in leadership's hands to change.
Start with a conversation.
Thirty minutes by video, and it's free. You tell me what isn't working and what you've already tried. I tell you whether I'd start with the Friction Audit or the full assessment, and you decide whether there's a next step.
Book a conversationNot ready for a full assessment? The Friction Audit is a first read in two weeks, for $2,500: one person's view and the material you already have, and a conversation about what it shows.