Economy & Credit Chest

Once the organization has decided to conduct an internal assessment, leadership must decide what it wants the assessment to focus on.Most organizations look at only one area of the organization: tasks. Some organizations assess employee morale through the use of an employee survey—an example of scanning the organization. But in forming a partnership, both of these areas need attention. I call them the material and ethereal realms of the organization. I use the term realm to describe the degree to which these spheres interact while still maintaining separate energies and characteristics. Let me use an analogy to show how these realms relate to partnerships. On planet Earth, there are two primary realms of existence: the marine environment and the terrestrial environment. While each realm operates independently of the other, the two interact in significant ways. For example, together they affect the atmosphere, which influences all life in both realms. Weather systems are created as the marine environment heats or cools more slowly than the surrounding landmasses and provides the moisture that evaporates into the air.

These systems are then circulated around the globe in a series of geoclimatic patterns that support the life forms that have developed in these environments. It is a system. The different realms of an organization affect the overall atmosphere, too, and thereby affect all other aspects of the organization in the process.

One way of appraising competing options is to look at the desired outcome and then see which option will achieve it. This simple approach is often complicated by the need to prioritise goals, reduce costs or minimise risk, and in selecting the best option usually involves trade-offs and compromise. Another approach is to establish criteria for the final decision – for example, it needs to work quickly, not be expensive, take a reasonable amount of time to organise and so forth – and then score each option against these components on a scale of 1–10. The highest-scoring option wins. With both approaches, you need to fully understand what each option requires, how it works and what it achieves.