• Are you a front-line employee, supervisor, manager, or executive in an organization that is going through significant change?
• Is your organization suffering from chaotic change, increases in sick leave, or significant loss of staff?
• Are you wondering how to make your work environment a healthier and more productive place to spend your day?

The pandemic has forced all organizations to deal with disruptive change in an unpredictable, chaotic, and frightening environment.  We witnessed huge layoffs and business shutdowns as we isolated for two years to avoid long-haul illness or death.  We are witnessing “the great resignation” where employees at all levels are reassessing their work-life priorities.  Add to that the never-ending evolution of technology, which is changing where and how we work, either individually or in teams.

Marya Wilson, PhD is an organizational sociologist who has worked for twenty years helping organizations, leaders, and employees manage transformation and disruptive change.  She understands the factors that make an organization an unhealthy place to work, which results in poor employee health and morale.  She’s seen organizations that achieve success and growth despite all the challenges of an uncontrollable environment and huge shifts in markets, processes, and technology.

In an interview with GoToHealth Media, she outlined factors that successful organizations have in place that weather all sorts of storms.

Leadership is confident throughout the transitions.  It establishes and maintains a clear vision and direction for where the organization is headed.  While goals and objectives drive growth, the organization’s values are clearly stated and understood, establishing expectations for relationships between staff, as well as with suppliers and customers.  There is clear and frequent communication throughout the organization, with honest and productive input from all levels without fear of retaliation or dismissiveness.  Workers are asked ‘how it’s going’, ‘what obstacles do you have’, how can we remove those obstacles’?  Work processes are continually evaluated for efficiency and flexibility as change washes over the organization.  Everyone feels heard and honored and enjoys being there and feeling accomplished as a team.

What does an unhealthy organization look like?  Take the opposite of everything just described, plus add lack of motivation, a betrayal of trust, increased sick leave and stress, elevated employee resignations, and equally important, the missing of strategic and financial goals.

“Unhealthy organizations are so avoidable,” says Dr. Wilson, “if leadership recognizes the critical importance of the organization’s human assets along with the focus on tasks and objectives.”  She states very clearly, “Leadership needs to value its people along with its capital and equipment.”

When Dr. Wilson engages with an organization, she applies a systems approach, assessing the organization as a synergistic whole.  With that approach, she applies a 5-step framework she calls her “Synergistic Leadership Model.”

In this decade of upheaval, uncertainty, and change, organizations perform best when they keep themselves and their human capital healthy.

Marya Wilson, PhD can be reached at https://mwadvising.com or 651-560-0659.

She explains her process in this GoToHealth Media interview at https://gotohealthmedia.com/how-organizational-health-effects-your-personal-health-marya-wilson-phd/