I lead workshops helping local government leaders on their journey to excellence. One of the best ways to visualize what that looks like is to name organizations that we feel have achieved and live it (over time).
Chick-Fil-A comes up as an example in every workshop.
What does Organizational Excellence look like?
We/PBI are honored to be leading the facilitation of Prince William County’s (PWC) 2025–28 Strategic Plan.
Not only is this the second largest County in Virginia, it’s also where I live.
Strategic planning done well is a very inclusive, aspirational, and thorough process. It is a trusted partnership between the local government and the expert vendor assisting them. In this case, the County brings history, context, and access to all the voices that need to contribute. PBI brings passion and expertise related to best practices in structuring the process, limiting excessive wording, and ensuring measurable outcomes.
Since April, we have achieved the following:
I have been following Women’s Professional Golf (LPGA) for over 10 years now.
Lydia Ko has been my favorite for about 9 of those – since she was 18. She just won the Gold Medal in the Paris Olympics. That gave her the “Podium Slam” – a term chosen for her after her Silver in Rio and Bronze in Tokyo. This also qualified her for entry into the LPGA Hall of Fame (the youngest person ever).
Two weeks later she won her 3rd Major Championship at St. Andrews in Scotland (called the “Old Course” and considered the premiere golf course in the world). At that event were a number of European players who will be playing in the Solheim Cup.
“Empowerment” gets thrown around quite frequently. I believe it’s one of those words that can have really different meanings depending on the mindset and intent of the sender and the receiver. I’m not going to get into semantics here – regarding empowerment vs. delegation.
Briefly, I believe that delegation is assigning tasks and responsibilities to others. Think “distributing”.
Empowerment is broader. It’s giving people the authority to make independent decisions and feel they can take action as they see fit. Think “opposite of micromanagement”.
NOW … beyond the definitions.
Why do we look forward to the weekends so much? Does work HAVE TO BE this way?
Many workplaces have high performance … and they can be a joy to work in if you enjoy what you do.
For others, it can be “Sunday nights suck” and “How did I ever get here?”
Much of this grief is caused by poor performance – of executives, leaders, managers, supervisors, front-line workers, and your peers (at whatever level).
I use the “Performance Equation” below to diagnose and prevent performance problems.
Happy Summer. The school year will finish soon. The weather will allow for more outdoor activities. Bosses (hopefully) understand that their employees will be taking time off. Employees will want to take vacations, staycations, and mental health days.
I believe this issue has two angles to it … individual and organizational. What do you plan to do during this 2+ month break? There are no right or wrong answers here, but your responses do say something about your goals, planning, and life integration (I’m using that term now instead of life balance).
We/PBI are honored to be leading the facilitation of Prince William County’s 2025–28 Strategic Plan.
Not only is this the second largest County in Virginia, it’s also where I live.
So far, the project has been wonderful.
This is why PBI works with local governments. Yes, there are conflicting voices and needs, but the mission is almost always the same – to provide services (Police, Fire & Rescue, Schools, Public Works, Social and Family Services, Parks & Recreation, Economic Development, and more) in an effective and fiscally responsible manner.
We believe in Organizational Excellence. Our commitment is to lead both the development of a plan that accomplishes the jurisdiction’s unique context and situation, but also prepares them to achieve it over time via a culture of Organizational Excellence.
The finalized plan will serve as a guiding document for resourcing decisions, focusing collaboration toward community outcomes, a communication vehicle about where the County is going and its’ progress, and to stimulate engagement to make the County a great place to live, work, and play.
This is MY passion. I’d enjoy talking with anyone who is interested or involved in strategic planning work.
The month of April includes Earth Day on the 22nd.
But why can’t it be every day in the month? Every day in the year?
Climate change … Global warming … whatever moniker you want to use … is real.
The examples are all around us.
This month, I … (am not sure what the right verb is … Celebrate? Acknowledge? Note?) that I have completed 9 full years with cancer.
The tumor is wrapped around the Aorta so it can never come out. So after almost two years of wishing and hoping, we had to adjust our mindset to “managing it”.
It has NOT been easy – on me, my family, my business partners, and even my clients. People have been very understanding and supportive for which I’m very grateful.
Last month I posted about Organizational Excellence, provided some examples of who has achieved it, and challenged my readers to define how they can personally support the “journey”.
OK, so that makes me think about Personal Excellence. Wow. That’s a loaded concept. It’s embedded in many things – your view of life, of work, of yourself, and of your WHY.
To a degree, I feel someone needs to define (even loosely) who they are as a person and what they stand for. All “measurements” require some form of baseline to compare against.
But … we are complex beings. We can have excellence in some areas and be woefully short in others. Is there an overall “score” for that? Adding more complexity, we may place different weight or emphasis on some areas over others.
