
Will you define the environment that you and your team operate in or will you let it define you?
James P. Lewis in his book Working Together: 12 Principles for Achieving Excellence in Managing Projects, Teams, and Organizations says ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got’. And so it is.
If you want to achieve your mission and realise your dream you should consider the following:
What is it that you do?
Who are your customers?
Where are you headed?
When I first became the Director of the Navy Band it was an entirely different organisation to the one that I left ten years later. At that time, the Royal Australian Navy had seven separate bands of differing size that were positioned in six naval bases around Australia. The seven bands came under different Commands and my predecessor, despite being responsible for the wider organisational management of the musicians, had little ability to influence the direction and outcomes of each band. Worryingly, each band was moving in a different direction. There wasn’t a clear focus on what their roles were, who their customers were, or where they were headed. Despite the significant differences in size and capability, each band was trying to deliver the same range and style of musical products; even though they didn’t have the skills and resources to do so. Consequently, there was a huge difference in quality across the brand and reputational outcomes were not being advanced. More concerning to me was the fact that the band had lost the ability to deploy musicians to sea, in a meaningful way, and on operational deployments.
With the help of the senior leaders in each band I collated the history of Navy’s musical ambassadors so that we could tell the proud story of ‘where we had been’ and set about redefining ‘who we were’, ‘what we stood for’, and ‘where we were headed’. The seven bands were incorporated into ‘one band’ with seven detachments (The Royal Australian Navy Band), and output was realigned to better meet the requirements of the Navy. Crucially, this new operating model gave direct ownership of the band's outcomes to its senior leadership team.
You can learn more about the benefits of redefining your environment by reviewing some of my articles or just send a message to start the conversation with me.
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