Organizational Greatness: Step # 5 of 16

By William Creech, Gen. Ret. USAF, 1927-2003

Step #5: BASE THE STRUCTURAL BUILDING BLOCKS ON SMALL TEAMS NOT ON BIG FUNCTIONS

• Organize by teams for involvement, agility, and an ownership focus.
• Keep each team at a reasonable size.
• Provide each its own identity.
• Every team has a product.
• Identify it. Dignify it. Celebrate it.
• Form teams of teams.
• Clearly identify the interfaces between teams.
• Provide each team ample authority over its part of the product.

Are your current teams structured for effectiveness? Not all teams are the same. Analyze your team structure. How does each team operate internally to achieve its purpose? How does each team interact with and support other teams and the overall organization? Great organizations are built by great teams.

Organizational Greatness: Step #2 of 16

By William Creech, Gen. Ret. USAF, 1927-2003

Step #2: FIRMLY ESTABLISH THE CHARTER AND CULTURE OF YOUR ORGANIZATION:

• Develop the overarching principles.
• Key them towards the human spirit.
• Ensure they are wholly understood and widely practiced…by all.
• Give them vigor through insistence, persistence, and consistency.
• Stress ETHICAL conduct, integrity, and courtesy in all endeavors.

The principles flow top down, but their power must flow bottom up.

Do you have a charter that establishes and reinforces the culture within your organization? Be certain that you do – and that it follows the above guidelines. Having a principle-driven charter that is consistently practiced provides endless power within great organizations.

Organizational Greatness: Step #1 of 16 

By William Creech, Gen. Ret. USAF, 1927-2003

Step #1: BUILD YOUR CULTURAL APPROACH AND ITS PRINCIPLES ON FIVE SYSTEM PILLARS:

PRODUCT*PROCESS*ORGANIZATION*LEADERSHIP*COMMITMENT

• The product is the focal point for the organizations purpose and achievement.
• Quality in the the product is impossible without quality in the process.
• Quality in the process is impossible without the right organization.
• The right organization is meaningless without proper leadership.
• Strong bottom-up commitment is the support for all the rest.

Each pillar depends upon the other four. If one is weak, all are weak.

Is your organization equally strong in all five system pillars? Identify the weak points within each pillar and it will strengthen each pillar individually and your organizational greatness overall.