Module 7: Culminating Project Milestone Three

Timothy Lynch

OGL 357 Organizational Assessment

Professor Kenneth Wilmott

November 27th, 2022

 Organizational Assessment Training Module

Introduction
Setting the stage:

My team is conducting an organizational assessment for Social Tech, a social media consulting company.
I have been put in charge of a team that has never conducted an organizational assessment before. We
must start by gaining an understanding of what an organizational assessment is and why it’s important
to the health of an organization:

What is organizational assessment?

Organizational assessment has evolved over the years. As organizations became more complex
in their operations, organizational assessment had to cover a multitude of aspects of an organization.
Simply meeting financial goals did not necessarily mean that an organization had no faults or
deficiencies. Other considerations had to be made, aspects such as employee morale, organizational
efficiency, and organizational effectiveness became more important (Lusthaus, 2002, p. 7).
Organizational assessment has now become a way to for organizations to measure organizational
performance, understand an organization’s external environment, determine organizational motivation,
and examine organizational capacity (Lusthaus, 2002, p. 9). Organizational assessment is a wonderful
tool that an organization or even a separate entity can use to improve an organization’s overall self-
awareness.

Why is organizational assessment important to the health of your organization?

Organizational assessment is incredibly important to the health of an organization. There are many
reasons why organizational assessment is so crucial to an organization’s development. By using
organizational assessment, you are gaining more awareness as to where an organization stands in its
culture and business operations (Brookey, 2022). An organizations culture and business operations are
important to the health of the organization because they reflect the organizational performance and
organizational motivation. Only through the use of an organizational assessment can we learn more
about these aspects of an organization and that is why it is so important to the health of an
organization.

Having awareness to an organization’s culture contributes significantly to organizational motivation. This

is important to the health of your organization because it demonstrates the personality of an
organization and the driving forces behind an organization’s mission, values, and vision (Lusthaus, 2002,
p.11). Knowing the “ins and outs” of an organization’s business operations helps an organization identify
processes areas that they need to improve on (Brookey, 2022). Business operations are a significant
drive of organizational performance. In reach high performance, organizations must operate efficiently
(Lusthaus, 2002, p.10). Ultimately, organizations must conduct organizational assessments in order to
gain a better understanding of which aspects the organization needs to improve on. Without
identification through organizational assessments, organizational health can decline if it is experiencing
deficiencies or other shortcomings.

The different organizational assessment models we can use to assess an organization:

There are many different types of organizational assessment models, however the main ones our team
will be aware of are the Good-to-Great, Baldrige Award, Shingo Prize, and the LESAT. In short, the
Baldridge Award assessment model maintains assessment criteria that reflect a variety of significant
organizational aspects such as leadership, strategic planning, information analysis, customer/market
focus, human resource focus, business results and process management. The Shingo Prize is an
organizational assessment model that covers organizational dimensions such as organizational culture,
continuous process improvement, and business results. The LESAT is an assessment model that assesses
the current state as well as an envisioned future state of an organization. The LESAT identifies gaps in
performance for an organization. Lastly, the Good-to-Great Assessment Model looks at the aspects of an
organization the differentiate a good company and a great company based on indicators such as quality
of leadership, willingness to approach issues with honesty and flexibility, and commitment to core
values. In conclusion, the important thing to know is that there are a multitude of assessment models,
and each organizational assessment model has its strengths and weaknesses. It is important to find the
best organizational assessment model that fits your organization and the situation your organization is
currently in.

The organizational assessment model we will be utilizing for the company, Social Tech, is the Good-to-
Great Assessment Model. The reason why we will be using this organizational assessment model is
because Social Tech has grown to a point where the organization is in its adult stage and has grown to
the point where the organization is established, and we are now at a point where we want to conduct
an organizational assessment to determine ways that we can improve an already established
organization.

Like we’ve stated before, the Good-to-Great assessment model looks at the aspects of an organization
the differentiate a good company and a great company based on indicators such as quality of leadership,
willingness to approach issues with honesty and flexibility, and commitment to core values. It is
important to consider that this organizational assessment model is perfect for organizations that are
already established and are looking to separate themselves from prior years performance and cement
themselves as an even better organization. Leadership is incredibly important to this assessment as well
as well established processes and organizational culture. Discipline within the organization is just as
important as leadership. An organization that is looking to excel and take it’s performance to the next
level should have a strong foundation through an organization filled with disciplined people, disciplined
thought, and disciplined action.
 References:

Brookey, C. (2022, March 6). The Benefits of an Organizational Assessment. Brookey & Company.
https://www.brookeyco.com/blog/2021/3/1/the-benefits-of-an-organizational-assessment

Lusthaus, Charles, ed. Organizational assessment: A framework for improving performance. IDRC, 2002.