Organizations Need To Create And Use Best Practices

While most of us train our children in certain behaviors and teach them one method to brush their teeth, etc., and we even train our dogs in terms of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior, and attempt to be consistent in these situations, the vast majority of organizations insist on constantly "reinventing the wheel."

For the past three decades, I have been teaching and training organizations and their leaders on how to create a series of best practices, so that those aspects of running the organization that are repetitive from year to year, can be readily and easily duplicated, so as to run seamlessly. However, the vast majority of organizations often find a need to change things up, often without any true rhyme or reason. While I have often spoken about, and written about, the importance of organizations to evolve, there is a tremendous difference between evolution and widespread revolution. Although I have observed a few organizations where revolution was probably called for, in most cases it is simply a matter of tweaking slightly the way things are done, in order to adapt to changing times, changing economics, changing member needs, etc.

Organizations that have any type of annual meetings, events, conferences or conventions, should develop in-depth, step-by-step manuals, so that each year, the organizers or chair people of the event, do not need to recreate everything. While there are always a few things that need changing, having the overall guide is very helpful. However, the concept of best practices includes each year's chairperson to make comments and evaluations as to what worked, what did not, and any suggestions. Too many organizations create a manual, but rarely update it, so that it becames outdated, and thus lack any useful purpose.

Organizations with paid staff should create annual calendars so that the staff knows what needs to be done, and when. This should have deadlines for each step, and the review processes needed. I have heard from far too many that this was unnecessary because they have paid staff that take care of that, but the reality is that there is generally at least some turnover in personnel. Paid staff should also be thoroughly trained and fully understanding their duties, and what is expected of them. Without this, there is often a misunderstanding as to what the expectations are, and generally one side feels that too much is expected, while the other believes that not enough is being done.

Similarly, volunteer leaders must be fully aware of their duties and expectations. Existing leaders should annually (if not more often) tweak the "Job Description" sheet, so that a new leader can be better prepared. Obviously, the few organizations that effectively have real leadership training fare better in terms of this than the majority that do not.