Dinning Table

A response to the The Collaborative Dining Table Activity
created by Peter Sheedy (@PeterS)

Number of views: 158

Where I work all major decisions are done in a team format.   This includes staff from all areas and disciplines such as HR, operations, and finance.   Depending on the issue, we may also include persons outside the organization.   The unique perspective and/or bias of each individual ensures a well-rounded output is created.

Our latest project is our organization has struggled to recover from COVID and we find ourselves in a recurring deficit position.   The object of the project was to figure out why and then create an action plan.

Being the Director, Finance, I could create an analysis but to interpret the analysis I needed to involve the following people to provide depth, context and understanding to uncover root causes.  The people included in the discussion, information gathering and analysis included:

Executive Director

Board of Directors

Director Programs

Manager  Programs

Manager DSO

Manager Passport

Director HR and Admin

Staff

External – Similar Organizations

Each person provides a unique perspective.   I am strong in analysis and analytics however, I have never worked front-line in our sector.   Our Executive director, Director Programs, and Manager Programs all have worked front line.   The manager of DSO and Passport both provided insight into global changes in our marketplace and had access to specific sets of data that help us understand why our sales numbers, post-COVID, were looking the way they did.   The Executive Director always brings the vision level of perspective.  The External originations provided benchmarking data as well as insight into what is happening in their organizations.

 

This model has worked very well for the organization.  Where we have seen breakdowns and problems is when any one group wants to work in a “silo”.    Working in “silos” is very ineffective and creates chaos and problems in other departments.   A business is a complex organism; a change one place will have an impact somewhere else.