OGL 357: Milestone Two

Chime Costello

As the Executive Director of a Reform Jewish congregation, a non-profit that serves over 400

households, I am bound by both the needs and values of the organization as a business, and

the needs and values of the organization as the spiritual home of over 1,500 members. In

addition to my staff, I have a very engaged lay leadership team that serves on our Board.

Prior to me joining the organization, a couple of assessments have been done in the past,

and while they identified very similar issues, neither had a holistic approach or offered a path

forward.

I believe that my organization would benefit from both the Shingo Assessment Model and

the Good to Great Assessment Model, as both clearly prioritize the relationship between

organizational culture and organizational success. For either assessment, I would create a

manual for the team. The manual would be much more than a resource; it would serve as a

tool for engagement and dialogue as we navigate the process. This way, once the

assessment is over, we would share a common language as we enter the implementation

stage. I could also create, either independent of or in conjunction with the manual, a

presentation that would share the assessment model and our goals for participating in the

assessment. An assessment that really evaluates the entirety of the organization is

enormously important for our sustainability.

In order for us to achieve our goals, the team needs to support and engage in this process.

I will work toward this by meeting with everyone individually first, creating a safe space to

share their thoughts and fears about what the process will look like. I want them to

understand how much value their involvement will bring, and that we will all be better for

their involvement. Once they truly understand that, it will help motivate and inspire them –

the assessment is a tool for empowerment.

 Below is a working outline of the assessments as I would approach them with my team.

The Good to Great Assessment:

• Where We Are: a conversation about our mission and vision, values, organizational history,
the impulse of necessity, naming the challenges, sharing goals for moving forward with the
assessment
• An Introduction to the Good to Great Assessment: A great organization is one that makes a
distinctive impact and delivers superior performance over a long period of time. For a
business, performance principally means financial results, specifically return on invested
capital. For a social sector organization, on the other hand, performance must be assessed
first and foremost relative to the organization’s mission, not its financial results. Notice that
by this definition you do not need to be big to be great. Your distinctive impact can be on a
local or small community, and your performance can be superior and long-lasting without
becoming large. You might choose to grow in order to have a wider impact and to better
deliver on your mission, but it is important to understand that big does not equal great, and
great does not equal big (Collins, n.d.).
• Stage 1: DISCIPLINED PEOPLE
a. Level 5 Leadership
b. First Who, Then What
• Stage 2: DISCIPLINED THOUGHT
a. Confront the Brutal Facts
b. The Hedgehog Concept
• Stage 3: DISCIPLINED ACTION
a. Culture of Discipline
b. The Flywheel
• Stage 4: BUILDING GREATNESS TO LAST
a. Clock Building, Not Time Telling
b. Preserve the Core / Stimulate Progress
• Goals: Excellence relative to our mission, impact on our community, ability to thrive
regardless of changes in leadership, ideas, or challenges
 The Shingo Assessment:

• Where We Are: a conversation about our mission and vision, values, organizational history,
the impulse of necessity, naming the challenges, sharing goals for moving forward with the
assessment
• An Introduction to the Shingo Assessment and the Shingo Prize: Create excellence in
organizations through the application of universally accepted principles of operational
excellence, alignment of management systems and the wise application of improvement
techniques across the entire organizational enterprise. Teach correct principles and new
paradigms that accelerate the flow of value, align and empower people and transform
organizational culture. The search for improvement is instinctive. For businesses and indeed
any organization to be successful in the long term, they must be engaged in a relentless quest
to make things better. The passionate pursuit of perfection, even knowing it is fundamentally
impossible to achieve, brings out the very best in every human being (Lean, n.d.).
• Guiding Principles
a. Respect Every Individual
b. Lead with Humility
c. Seek Perfection
d. Embrace Scientific Thinking
e. Focus on Process
f. Assure Quality at the Source
g. Improve Flow & Pull
h. Think Systemically
i. Create Constancy of Purpose
j. Create Value for the Customer
• Dimension One: Cultural Enablers
• Dimension Two: Continuous Process Improvement
• Dimension Three: Enterprise Alignment
• Dimension Four: Results
• Scope of Transformation
• Goals: Excellence relative to our mission, impact on our community, ability to thrive
regardless of changes in leadership, ideas, or challenges

Sources:

Jim Collins. (n.d.). Good to Great Diagnostic Tool. Retrieved from

https://www.jimcollins.com/tools/diagnostic-tool.pdf

(N.d.). Lean.nh.gov. Retrieved June 12, 2023, from

https://lean.nh.gov/documents/Shingo%20Model%20Handbook.pdf