An Organizational Assessment is a way of looking at an organization and its leadership to understand its current state and determine gaps between desired performance and how it can achieve its goals. Assessment is an organic process, often integrated within an overall Organizational Development (OD) process:

Discovery → Diagnosis → Action Planning → Implementation → Conclusion

The Assessment encompasses the first two phases in the OD cycle. The purpose of the Assessment is to uncover challenges and opportunities in the organization in detail, to identify factors and forces that might be causing problems or inhibiting growth, and to prepare the collected information to decide how to implement possible solutions to the identified problems.

The scope of the Assessment examines leadership, organizational structure, processes, behaviors (value and culture), and communications.

What is usually involved in an Organizational Assessment?

Understand the organization’s structure. Conduct interviews with key contributors.
Understand and document roles, responsibilities, and key processes, observe a number of departmental and company meetings, evaluate company goals structure, metrics and KPIs.
Identify the team’s strengths and weaknesses and core competencies. (We administer the BestWork Data assessment to all key personnel and do a GAP analysis.)
Develop and administer a culture audit (via survey, to all employees) to evaluate engagement.
Evaluation of human resources practices.

What are some of the outcomes of an Organizational Assessment?

An understanding of gaps and challenges that might be inhibiting growth.
Discovery of opportunities to improve performance and manage rapid growth.
Specific recommendations to leverage strengths and address challenges.
An assessment of leadership capabilities and gaps.
Stronger team engagement, developing a collaborative sense of ownership and accountability.

How do we get started or learn more?

Organizational Dev

How to Do a Layoff Well: The Parts That Feel Cold Are the Kind Ones

One of the hardest things for a manager to accept is that a layoff meeting isn’t a discussion about whether someone keeps their job or even why it’s happening. The decision has already been made. The meeting is short and one-on-one. The news comes from the person’s closest manager, unless that manager is also being laid off. HR is in the room. The manager says a few clear sentences, then HR walks the person through the paperwork and next steps. Short doesn’t mean robotic.

Two Honest Reasons for a Layoff, and Three Convenient Ones

Technology used to be expensive to build, and relatively inexpensive labor was often the better return. AI has changed that calculation for certain kinds of work. Tasks that once required entire teams can now be automated relatively cheaply. I don’t think CEOs should pretend otherwise. I do think they need to be honest about what actually changed.

Leadership, Growth Strategies

Your Peer Group Will Tell You What No One Else Will

I’ve been facilitating CEO peer groups for fifteen years. The biggest factor in whether someone gets value from a group is vulnerability. Not performative vulnerability. The kind that costs you something to say out loud, the thing you'd rather not say because it makes you look uncertain, stuck, bored, scared, or wrong. The people who get the most from these groups aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest problems. They're the ones willing to let the room see the problem clearly enough to help.

Leadership, Communications

Visibility Is Part of the CEO Job

I don't think every CEO needs to become a LinkedIn personality. The question is simpler. Who needs to know you exist? Where are they? And what would help them understand how you think before they ever sit across from you? That answer will change as the company grows, as your buyers change, as platforms come and go. You adjust. That I don’t think you can do anymore is decide visibility isn’t part of your job at all. Your personal brand is important to your company’s brand.

Leadership, Personal Development

How You Look Is Part of How You Lead

Most founders and executives I work with are uncomfortable talking about how they look. It feels shallow. Not the point. I get it. They started their companies because of a vision, not an ego. By the time they're working with an advisor, they're wrestling with real problems: who belongs in which seats, how to build accountability, how to run a leadership meeting. Thinking about personal image can feel self-indulgent by comparison.

You Can't Scale the Company Without Scaling the Culture

Founders tend to think about a major transition as a singular event. You prepare, announce, close, and now you're a different company. In my experience, the company starts changing well before any of that happens. I've been through this several times now, and the details were different every time. The weirdness was pretty consistent.

Growth Strategies, Leadership

Not Every Idea Deserves to Be Fully Baked

Sometimes exploration is worth it. Sometimes you just spent a week of the team’s attention answering a question the founder could have tested in an afternoon. That is the part I think leaders underestimate. Ideas do not only cost money. They cost time, focus, and brainpower long before anyone approves a budget. The question I’d want answered is: how much of the organization does this idea deserve yet?

If Everyone Is Playing Defense with their Goals, Nobody Is Trying to Win

Ask a room of leaders why they set goals and most will say accountability. That answer creates the problem. Goals exist for alignment. The company needs to reach a number, so this group does this, that group does that, and together the math works. Everyone is pointed in the same direction. Focus comes second. A good goal tells you what to say no to.

Organizational Assessment

Trajectify