Optimizing Productivity by Leveraging the Organizational Health Index (OHI)
The typical approach to improving productivity focuses on assessing variance in quality, time, rate, service, or cost, around which management systems develop incrementally or revolutionary.
Organizational Health Index, on the contrary, focuses on improving performance through improved alignment of organizational systems. For example, by improving competence of key components such as mindset, work design, technical expertise, or relationships; or through improving the interface between work processes, or the interaction between work practices.
Simply put, the capability of an organization to achieve its strategic goals and their alignment defines an organization’s health. The Organizational Health Index (OHI) leverages logical consistency to manage the organizational health. OHI entails quantifiable evaluations, diagnostics and recipes for success that allow the leaders to calculate and accomplish the organizational health goals, required to sustain long-term performance.
Organizational health refers to the need to address soft (leadership, direction or culture) and hard factors (accountability, reporting lines, or controls) affecting performance. The organizational health index is an ongoing continuous improvement system applicable across an organization. The OHI measures not only the current health level, but also determines the next steps for an organization. There are numerous advantages to the organizations implementing it, including:
- Benchmarking organizational health against the rivals.
- Aligning the organizational systems, units, and people by communicating shared goals and priorities; and highlighting and plugging the disconnects.
- Improving organizational performance by pinpointing variances and opportunities to improve health and drive business success.
The OHI Diagnostic Framework provides a road map for leaders and managers to improve organizational health. It measures the organization against the 9 most critical health outcomes; these outcomes comprise both hard and soft organizational elements. Careful measurement of these 9 elements has a proven link with improved financial performance and earning above-average EBITDA margins:
- Direction
- Accountability
- Coordination and control
- External orientation
- Leadership
- Innovation and Learning
- Capabilities
- Motivation
- Work Environment
There are 37 management practices under these 9 health outcomes, developed to help companies identify the behaviors most critical to their health journey:
Direction
- Shared Vision
- Strategic Clarity
- Employee Involvement
Accountability
- Role clarity
- Performance contracts
- Consequence Management
- Personal Ownership
Coordination and Control
- People Performance Review
- Operational Management
- Financial Management
- Professional Standards
- Risk Management
External Orientation
- Customer Focus
- Competitor Insights
- Business Partnerships
- Government and Community Relations
Leadership
- Authoritative Leadership
- Consultative Leadership
- Supportive Leadership
- Challenging Leadership
Innovation and Learning
- Top-down Innovation
- Bottom-up Innovation
- Knowledge Sharing
- Capturing External Ideas
Capabilities
- Talent Acquisition
- Talent Development
- Process based Capabilities
- Outsourced Expertise
Motivation
- Meaningful Values
- Inspirational Leaders
- Career Opportunities
- Financial Incentives
- Rewards and Recognition
Work Environment
- Open and Trusting
- Internally Competitive
- Operationally Disciplined
- Creative and Entrepreneurial
Years of research have shown the healthiest companies to align with 1 of the 4 recipes for organizational health. These recipes constitute concrete management practices and activities for the organization to implement. Leaders need to acknowledge and align to the recipe that is appropriate for them. They can use these success recipes to plan and implement a change program that results in sustainable outcomes. The 4 recipes for organizational health are:
- Leadership
- Market Maker
- Continuous Improvement
- Talent
Interested in learning more about the other recipes for Organizational Health and the OHI Diagnostic Framework? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Organizational Health Index here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Do You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“As a small business owner, the resource material available from FlevyPro has proven to be invaluable. The ability to search for material on demand based our project events and client requirements was great for me and proved very beneficial to my clients. Importantly, being able to easily edit and tailor the material for specific purposes helped us to make presentations, knowledge sharing, and toolkit development, which formed part of the overall program collateral. While FlevyPro contains resource material that any consultancy, project or delivery firm must have, it is an essential part of a small firm or independent consultant’s toolbox.”
– Michael Duff, Managing Director at Change Strategy (UK)
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight — it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
“Several times a month, I browse FlevyPro for presentations relevant to the job challenge I have (I am a consultant). When the subject requires it, I explore further and buy from the Flevy Marketplace. On all occasions, I read them, analyze them. I take the most relevant and applicable ideas for my work; and, of course, all this translates to my and my clients’ benefits.”
– Omar Hernán Montes Parra, CEO at Quantum SFE
