You’re grateful for what God has done for you. So, you want to serve God, in part by pursuing excellence for Him. As a ministry leader, you know that one type of excellence you want to pursue is organizational excellence. Good.
 
What can you do to pursue organizational excellence? Here are 4 things you can do:
 
(1) Make sure staff are cared for. To care for staff on a personal level, demonstrate interest in them, have fun together, and provide life coaching to help staff balance work/home. To care for staff on a professional level, demonstrate interest in their ministry, encourage them to reflect, and provide support, encouragement and accountability.
           
(2) Make sure staff participate in professional development. What kind of professional development? In professional development that addresses current job responsibilities and that helps individual staff members achieve their annual growth goals. In professional development that involves staff in reflection and follow-up. In professional development that helps your staff do ministry more effectively.
 
(3) Make sure staff meetings target mission achievement. Make sure each meeting’s purpose is documented, targets mission achievement, and is used as the filter for what gets on the agenda. Have those attending the meeting collaboratively develop meeting guidelines that define desired meeting dynamics. And schedule separate meetings to address tactics, strategy, and vision.
 
(4) Make sure staff understand, are involved in, and are focused on organizational improvement. How can you do this? By explaining organizational improvement, encouraging ownership, involving staff in developing improvement plans, and providing the support and accountability staff need to carry out improvement plans. Here's the acid test: If ministry leadership dropped of the planet, would the plans still get implemented? If so, then you have an effective organizational improvement plan.
 
Bottom line: Pursue excellence.

*How can you help others pursue excellence? By asking questions like:

1. What’s excellence?
2. What’s satisfying/unsatisfying about pursuing organizational excellence?
3. For your ministry, what does organizational excellence look like?
4. What can you do to pursue organizational excellence?
5. What will you do?

You want to close the gap. You know that enhancing your organization’s improvement system can help. So, you want to learn more.

Question: How can you learn more enhancing organizational improvement?

Answer: By exploring the following list of 6 questions.

1. How well does your staff understand what’s involved in organizational improvement?
2. How involved are your stakeholders in organizational improvement?
3. How focused is your staff on organizational improvement?
4. What drives your organization’s improvement?
5. To what extent do improvement plans guide staff work?
6. To what extent are staff held accountable for improvement plans?

*To learn more, take this self-assessment.