Organizational Self-Assessment—Putting Your
Finger on What Needs to Improve

Every nonprofit organization goes through periods of difficulty. Sometimes it’s just growing pains, sometimes it’s not knowing how to do something, sometimes it’s the challenge of insufficient resources, and sometimes it’s trying to do something new or make a significant change. The reasons for organizational difficulties are multitude. And because so many things can go wrong, or so many challenges can occur, it is highly beneficial for organizations to have the ability to accurately diagnose the source(s) of their difficulties in order to quickly correct course and optimize the use of often scarce resources.

Self-assessment is about taking the pulse of your organization—what is currently working well? What isn’t working well? What is hindering your progress? It should be designed to expose root causes of organizational problems or issues, so that appropriate and effective solutions can be implemented. Or it may be used when you want to do something you have never done before—better informing you of the strengths you can apply to the effort and the deficiencies that might inhibit implementation of your new idea.

The following discussion focuses on the mission, leadership, and infrastructure components of organizational effectiveness, and not program and/or service evaluation. Obviously, program effectiveness is critical to any organization’s long-term success, but we want to emphasize management and organizational considerations that can easily de-rail the best-intentioned leadership efforts and that are not always obvious to the casual observer. In addition, our leadership focus will be on staff leadership, not board governance. An extensive body of knowledge regarding self-assessment of board effectiveness already exists. Organizational self-assessment should focus on things that are changeable, that you can control, and that directly impact performance. Good organizational assessment will identify “cause and effect” relationships, helping insure that whatever corrective actions you put in place will produce meaningful change. Organizational self-assessment has additional benefits as well:

• It helps bring focus to your improvement efforts
  
• It helps optimize the use of your resources
  
• Done correctly, it emphasizes opportunities for improvement, not “fixing blame”
  
• It looks at the total organization, not just one or two aspects
  
• It is performance focused, not people focused
  
• It can improve results
  

And the good news is…..organizational self-assessment does not have to be an overly formal, heavily structured, painstaking process to produce highly useful information! If you are looking for a simple way to get started, here are a few ideas about where to look for the root of organizational performance issues, and some questions to ask when you get there!

Organizational Purpose

Exploring organizational purpose takes you to the very foundation of the organization—your mission, vision, strategy, goals, and objectives. The bedrock for all leadership activity is contained in these dimensions of organizational effectiveness. It is here that the board and staff should find their guidance for ongoing planning, decision making and problem solving. To get a sense of your current state of affairs with regard to organizational purpose, a few questions to ask are:

• Does the organization have a clearly defined vision and mission that both board and staff commonly understand and agree to?
  
• Do the vision and mission exist in the “hearts, minds, and behavior” of the board and staff, and not just in a strategic plan or a plaque hanging on the lobby wall?
  
• Does the organization have clearly defined goals and objectives, both strategic and operational, and have clear priorities been established among those goals and objectives?
  
• Is the current activity of the board and staff focused on organizational priorities?
  
• Are priorities regularly reviewed, and when there are changes, are the people most impacted involved in the change decision?
  

Organizational Structure

There are several key elements involved in organizational structure: How will the work of the organization be organized? To whom will it be distributed? How will the work be coordinated so that it all serves the common purpose? It is within the context of organizational structure that issues such as roles, responsibilities, authority, and standards get addressed. An indication of your organization’s current status regarding structure can be measured through the following questions:

• Do all members of the organization (board and staff) understand each other’s roles and responsibilities? Is it clear to everyone as to who is responsible for what and who makes what decisions?
  
• Does every individual, board and staff, understand how they fit in the organization and why their contributions are important?
  
• Is it clear to board and staff as to how their respective work is supposed to get done? Do they know the appropriate policies and methods to follow?
  
• Is the board/staff relationship clearly established? Do clear lines of authority exist?
  
• Have standards of performance been established for both board and staff, so that every individual in the organization knows what is expected of them and how their contributions will be measured?
  
• Are people (board and staff) working within a set of realistic expectations and a recognition of personal and resource limitations?
  

Work Processes

An examination of organizational processes entails a review of systems, policies, and procedures that are in place to facilitate the day-to-day work of the organization. This analysis includes consideration of areas such as information flow, planning practices, decision making processes, and control mechanisms. Regarding organizational processes, some questions to be raised include:

• Is the working environment allowing people to do their best work? Are people getting the information they need to do their jobs?
  
• Is daily work planned and purposeful, or does there tend to be a reactive, “firefighting” mentality?
  
• Who makes what decisions? How are decisions made?
  
• Is problem solving and decision making participative, involving those impacted by the decisions?
  
• Are there enough controls in place to guide and monitor ongoing work? Are there too many controls that restrict people’s ability to get work done?
  
• Are work practices consistent with cultural values espoused by organizational leadership?
  
• Are organizational meetings, both at the board and staff level, effective?
  
• Are adequate personnel policies and practices in place?
  

Staff Leadership

An assessment of staff leadership incorporates the management policies, practices, and procedures that are employed on a daily basis to guide and influence the work of the organization. As an initial evaluation of the impact of leadership, your assessment should focus on the executive director or CEO. The executive director establishes the climate for human relationships within the organization and has ultimate accountability for the day-to-day performance of the staff. Assessment of the leadership area should also include the management of all volunteers currently serving the organization. You should ask:

• Does the executive director provide clear and consistent direction for the work of the organization?
  
• Does the executive director make his/her expectations clear when it pertains to staff performance?
  
• Does the E.D. lead by example? Practice what she/he preaches?
  
• Are the executive director’s current leadership style and practices a good match with the organizational culture and the stage of development of the organization?
  
• What are the E.D.’s most effective qualities and practices? What are his/her least effective qualities and practices?
  
• How do the leadership practices of other key staff members impact current performance?
  
• Are people’s expectations of their leaders being met?
  
• What would make leadership more effective in the organization?
  

Interpersonal Relations

Assessing organizational relationships looks at the interpersonal effectiveness of board-to-staff interactions and staff-to-staff interactions. Relationship components to explore include communication patterns and practices, levels of mutual trust and respect, cooperation and teamwork, and methods for resolving conflicts and personal disagreements. Some probing questions include:

• Do people work well together?
  
• Is teamwork encouraged and supported?
  
• Are there effective methods for resolving disagreements and conflicts?
  
• What is the norm for people communicating with one another? Formal? Informal? Are current communication practices effective?
  
• How open is communication? Do people feel “safe” to tell the truth?
  
• How easy/difficult is it to obtain information necessary to do your job?
  
• Are trust and mutual respect demonstrated throughout the organization?
  

Reward Structure

The reward structure of the organization is evaluated through its practices in staff development, promotional opportunities, compensation practices, recognition practices, and other informal rewards. Effective reward and recognition practices have tremendous potential for keeping employees motivated and morale high. You should consider:

• What are people rewarded for?
  
• What is the nature of rewards in the organization? Formal? Informal? Both?
  
• How often does recognition occur in the organization? How well is it handled?
  
• Are people generally recognized for a job well done?
  
• Are compensation and benefits distributed fairly? Are they competitive?
  
• Is pay tied to performance?
  

Resources

This area examines the adequacy of resources currently available to do the work of the organization and the planning and implementation practices that are in place to provide ongoing resource development. This analysis should be inclusive of people, money, facilities, and tools that are necessary for optimal performance. Bear in mind, that while many nonprofits are “resource challenged,” they can still be quite efficient. Ask:

• Are the right people in the right jobs?
  
• Do people have the skills necessary for their job?
  
• Do you have enough people?
  
• Has the board accepted its resource development responsibility? Is it effective?
  
• How much staff time is allocated to resource development?
  
• Do you have the budget you need to do your job? The tools?
  
• What types of people are most successful in this organization?
  
• What would make you more productive in your work?
  
• Are we leveraging technology to our advantage?
  

Based on our work at the Center for Nonprofit Management, a majority of the causes of organizational dysfunction can typically be found within these areas. So a thorough self-assessment should probe each of these elements of your organization—looking for clues as to what is working and what isn’t. And the people who should be analyzing each of these areas are the people, board and/or staff, who most directly impact them on a daily basis. Remember, this is a self-assessment!

An objective data gathering mindset and methodology should be established, and appropriate questions should be devised that will draw out the reality of any current situation. Analysis of the data gathered should be done as objectively as possible, and focus on cause-and-effect relationships.

Once critical issues are identified, a prioritization process must occur. Working jointly, the board and staff should determine one or two things they initially want to address. A common mistake many organizations make is to over-commit to corrective actions, thus not utilizing resources optimally and negatively impacting the morale of both board and staff through unmet expectations. As issues are resolved, new ones can always be added to the list.

Finally, before embarking on your own self-assessment journey, please give serious consideration to the following decision points:

• Do we have the expertise and resources to do it ourselves (if not, how much help would we need?)
  
• Have we determined what we can effectively control and what we cannot?
  
• Do we have the objectivity to do it ourselves?
  
• Do we have the will to address and resolve the issues we uncover?