Dancing to Your Organization’s Music

There’s an old song by the band Genesis called I Can’t Dance which includes the lines “I can’t dance, I can’t talk. The only thing about me is the way I walk.” I can relate to these lyrics because they’re the words of someone who has no rhythm.

And though I have no musical rhythm, my goal has been to create an organization that does; I want SpringHill to have rhythm so it can dance to the music of its annual work calendar.

What does organizational rhythm look like? It’s when an organization’s structure, leadership, meetings, communication, reporting and planning align with the natural rhythm of its work.

For example, at SpringHill, we discovered that we have three distinct seasons (winter, summer, and fall) and not the traditional 4 quarters. So we’ve organized board meetings, SpringHill wide staff meetings, and planning sessions around these three seasons. It allows us to evaluate the past season and plan the next.

Then within each season all our teams meet after the middle of each month to review the monthly progress towards seasonal and annual goals. We also have weekly “huddles” where we review our weekly progress towards these same goals.

During the next two weeks, for example, we have our monthly leadership team meeting, our winter board meeting and our winter SpringHill wide staff meeting. In each meeting we’re reviewing, discussing and evaluating all the same information – the evaluation of our 2012 results and the progress on our 2013 plan.

And the beauty of having this rhythm is that at the end of this two-week period all our staff and board will be both informed, aligned, and focused on achieving our goals.

So like dancing, having organizational rhythm, makes moving to your organization’s music easier, exciting, and more importantly, effective in achieving your goals.