Michele sits in her office with Tom. Both are smiling. Michele says, “They understand! Our staff understand how the big picture fits together.”

“Yeah, at this morning’s meeting,” Tom responds, “the maintenance crew prioritized projects based on how much impact they would have on achieving the mission. And during the lunch meeting, the office staff discussed how the improvement process is moving us toward achieving our mission.”

“That type of conversation wasn’t happening before,” says Michele. “As a staff, we’re definitely more focused. I’m glad we used the IDEAL process to move forward on this.”

What have Michele and Tom be working on? Meeting the following organizational standards:

• The leadership empowers staff through developing staff understanding.
  
• Staff understand the connections between the mission, the definition of mission achievement, job descriptions, and the improvement process.

What process did they use? The IDEAL process.

• Identify the problem and ask God for help.
  
• Define the problem.
  
• Explore ways to address the problem. Pick one and make a plan to address it.
  
• Act.
  
• Look at the results.

How did Michele and Tom use the IDEAL process?

Identify the problem and ask God for help: Michele and Tom noticed that staff didn’t sufficiently understand how their jobs contributed to mission achievement or how improvement plans contributed to mission achievement. Because of this, some staff felt disconnected from the improvement plans and from colleagues who seemed to play a more prominent role in improvement plans. Michele and Tom added this issue to their regular list of prayer requests and asked God for help.

Define the problem: Tom reviewed the organizational standards. He shared his findings with Michele, and both agreed that the 2 organizational standards to target were:

1. The leadership empowers staff through developing staff understanding.
   
2. Staff understand the connections between the mission, the definition of mission achievement, job descriptions, and the improvement process.

Using the following rubric, they rated current performance as below standard on inputs and outputs:

Inputs: The leadership ___ staff through developing staff understanding.

• consistently and systemically empowers
  
• consistently empowers
  
• empowers (meets the standard)
  
• somewhat empowers
  
• rarely empowers

Outputs: Staff ___ the connections between the mission, the definition of mission achievement, job descriptions, and the improvement process.

• consistently and systemically understand
  
• consistently understand
  
• understand (meets the standard)
  
• somewhat understand
  
• rarely understand

Explore ways to address the problem: Michele and Tom decided that they would first focus on inputs, on what they could do as leaders. Then they brainstormed options:

• Ask questions: What is our mission? What does our mission mean and not mean? What’s our definition of mission achievement? What’s our current level of mission achievement? What can we do to close the gap? How effectively will this ___ (meeting, project, task, proposed change) help us accomplish our mission?
  
• Provide training, during which staff would study and memorize the mission and the definition of mission achievement.
  
• Provide time for staff to discuss the following question: If no one did my job, how would that impact the achievement of our mission?
  
• Provide training, during which staff would connect each section of a given job description to a part of the definition of mission achievement.
  
• Provide training, during which staff would connect improvement plans to job descriptions and to the definition of mission achievement.

Michele decided that she would ask questions (Option #1), while Tom decided to lead a training on the mission and the definition of mission achievement (Option #2).

Act: Michele asked 1 or more questions in each meeting she attended. Tom provided training for 100% of the staff.

Look at the results: Michele and Tom noticed that staff increasingly used the mission and the definition of mission achievement in conversations. They wanted to move the organization toward exceeding the standard. As a next step, Tom decided to ask staff, “If no one did your job, how would that impact the achievement of our mission” (Option #3). Michele decided to provide training to help staff connect each section of a given job description to 1 of the 3 parts of the definition of mission achievement (Option #4).

How does this apply to you? Ask yourself 3 questions:

• To what extent do I empower our staff to understand the big picture?
  
• To what extent do our staff understand the big picture?
  
• How can I use the IDEAL process to meet or exceed 1 or both of these organizational standards?

Steward what God has given you. Use the IDEAL process to meet or exceed a key organizational standard. Pursue excellence today.