6 Key Components of an Organization

To drive long-term success and realize short-term gains, organizations must understand and actively work all six key components of their business.

How do you create and run a successful organization that’s well-balanced, innovative and efficient, evolving and grounded, with a great culture and honest accountability?

You need to define and actively manage these six components of your business:

Your Purpose and Pursuits: Who You Are and What You Do

Every organization needs a purpose, a reason to exist in the world, a reason to exist in the marketplace and a clear definition of what you do. Said another way, this is how you create value in the world and in your market.

Having a clear and strong purpose also allows you to differentiate in the marketplace and allows employees to better connect with your organization.

Your Buyer & Benefits: Who Finds Value in Who You Are and What You Do

It’s important to understand who buys from you and why. If you aren’t clear on this it’s hard to understand the role you play and the value you provide. If you don’t know your buyer? Go meet them, whether you start with market research and generic demographics or you get face time with them 1:1- and everything in between, it’s vital to know who they are and why they buy from you.

As you grow and evolve as a company, staying in sync with your customers ensures you can not just meet their needs now, but also in the future.

Who You Aspire to Be: Now and in the Future

Everyone has an aspiration, even if you aspire to stay the same (spoiler- that’s not possible). Declaring your aspiration(s) gives you a goal, it gives you direction and it allows you to determine where you’re aligning your business compass and where to begin as you define your vision and strategy. Aspirations are often driven by business motivations, ex. Increased revenue, new market opportunities, ex. A new product or services or an underserved market, or they may be general organizational goals, ex. Be more innovative, be more efficient, evolve better, etc.

A Clear Current and Future Strategy

Every organization needs a plan for the near-term and a plan for the future. You need to know where you want to go and begin to work towards it. It’s a start down a path with an end goal in mind, knowing the journey there may take detours and the goal may change. Having a current and future strategy gives you and employees an anchor and direction as decisions are made and you move forward as a company.

You Understand How Your Organization Works: Interactions & Behavior, Roles & Responsibilities

If you don’t understand how your organization works, you don’t know what you’re doing right, and you don’t know what you’re doing wrong. You don’t know what to lean into and where your weaknesses or vulnerabilities lie.

Understanding how information goes between individuals and teams, how personalities relate to one another, and all of the many backchannel or dotted line relationships work will allow you to see when and where you can make changes to lead to your desired outcomes (or evolution).

You Know How to Measure Success, Progress and Maintain Accountability

Establishing aspirations, visions, goals or targets are one thing, realizing them is another. Setting smart metrics of success, tracking them within a realistic time frame and learning from their progress are all essential in reaching your goals. Personal and group accountability in making progress towards these is also essential. Remember, metrics and accountability should be used as an empowerment tool. Not meeting a metric shouldn’t be looked at as a personal failure, instead, it’s a sign that a premise or hypothesis was incorrect. For example, you thought you had a great new idea all your customers would want, after initial meetings with customers, no one is interested. Is it because your salesperson is bad at their job, or is it that the idea isn’t quite right or you’re not presenting it correctly and you need to work on your framing. Metrics are direct feedback that allow you to make better decisions. Treat them that way. It’s important to note, metrics are hard, checking on progress can make people feel vulnerable, but clarity and honesty and accountability is the only way to truly grow and succeed.

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