A healthy commitment to organization wide development typically operates over a two to five year period. I usually work closely with a smaller "internal change unit" specifically mandated by the Executive (Officer / Board, etc.) to champion the organizational renewal process. (Depending on the size of the organization, this internal change committee may be very small, or one person only.)

Every organization, whether a Business-for-Profit, Educational Institution, Government Department, or NonProfit Professional Association, is part of, and resides in the larger societal community, or the "environment".

The organization's core function is to transform INPUTS ("resources, and technology") into OUTPUTS ("products,and services") that someone needs, or values enough to utilize, and/or pay for, the primary thesis of the widely accepted Open Systems Model (early 1940's thru 1960's focus) in main stream western managerial theory and practice.

I have found Dr. Marvin Weisbord's "Six Box Model" (1978) a continuing valuable cognitive map, or model to use in assessing the health of the internal functioning of the modern organization: how it transforms "raw resources" into "products, and/or services" that someone in the "environment" needs, and is willing to pay for, keeping the organization vital, and replenished. Elements of the model are as follows:

1. Purpose: What specific business are we in, and is there a healthy consensus of understanding, and commitment by all organization members to this Purpose? Is this Purpose relevant today?
2. Structure: This is how the organization divides up the work, and does each member know clearly what their particular job entails?
3. Rewards: What are the incentives for doing what needs to be done? Are these specific to positive performance, and does each person primarily feel they receive these fairly?
4. Helpful Mechanisms: Are there adequate coordinating technologies, and does each member both know how to use these, and have access to their use as needed?
5. Relationships: Is there clarity as to whom everyone relates in the organization? When conflict happens between people, or between technologies, are there norms, ethics, and skills to manage this conflict effectively?
6. Leadership: Is someone proactively monitoring and acting to keeping the "Boxes" in balance?
   
   A seventh "Box" other practitioners added to Weisbord's Model, to handle the rapid change taking place in our culture, and effecting both the external Environment in which the organization functions (both available Inputs, and changing Outputs demand), as well as the internal "Six Box conversion system", namely,
   
   
7. Experience with Change: What changes are being confronted by the organization at the present moment? How about in the the near past? (Takeovers? Reorganization? Buyouts? Bankruptcy? Downsizing? New Products/Services?) Changes in any of the other Six Boxes? How do organization members feel about having experienced these changes?

Whatever the organization's structure, or governance, the success of organizational renewal requires the committed support of the Owners, Board, Executive levels! (Without this demonstrated behavior, personnel lower in the organization don't seriously support the change process, and/or where serious change energy comes from the bottom up, and where "management" haven't prepared for this, negative "bottleneck" situations damage employee trust!

Using a combination of structured interviews, and self-report questionnaires with each of Board, Executive, Supervisors, and individual Team members, the Change Committee alone with my support, or my working alone, as agreed by the Committee, we will come up with a written summary Report of the Organization's Health. This "Report" would be strategically shared with different levels of the organization, discussions ensue, leading to eventual consensus(sometimes in stages, and on certain aspects of their Organization .... often other action committees are struck to come forward with recommendations to resolve specific "performance gaps" identified in the survey process, followed by further discussion, and further consensus).

This is the manner of establishing a Strategic Planning process resulting organizational renewal.

Sometimes the process of organizational assessment has already been mostly completed internally prior to contact with me. I may be contacted to facilitate a resolution process that has hit an impasse', or sometimes to critique' the reorganization plan now established, or to conduct "training, and/or coaching" with specific components (individuals, or teams) supportive to the reorganization established in the Strategic Plan.

Regarding Training, supportive to the Strategic Plan being operationalized, I am able to Plan, Structure, Deliver, and Coach adult educational learning experiences with all seven dimensions of Weisbord's Model, depending where the gaps in "skills and competencies" are identified.

I also reside in a network of other Human Resource people, and can therefore locate other Human Resources outside my own expertise, especially in the information and technology sectors.