Grow Mindset
What’s the best tip before a job interview? Researching the organization. Researching before the interview demonstrates an interest in understanding the organization's culture and allows you to tailor your responses to the interviewer's questions. This level of effort can present you as a well-informed candidate and increase your chances of being selected for the position. Once selected, your next step is to build organizational awareness.
What is organizational awareness?
It’s the ability to “connect the dots.” Organizational awareness is the ability to visualize, interpret, and articulate the organization’s functions, resources, and people, as well as how these systems interact and align to achieve organizational objectives and drive growth. It also considers internal and external factors that influence senior leadership decisions.
Learning about the organization inside and out will make you a valuable and indispensable resource. This means developing a wealth of knowledge to become a representative and resource for the organization.
Growth Mindset
A holistic approach to becoming a subject matter expert within your organization or profession.
Learning the basics.
You will always need to learn the basics, whether onboarding into a new position or transitioning into one with more responsibilities. Each presents a different level of information you must learn, which can feel like drinking from a fire hose.
Determining where to begin is sometimes tricky because, again, fire hose… One reason is that we’re trying to learn and absorb a tremendous amount of information, simultaneously. Effective note-taking, bookmarking web pages, and periodic reviews can increase your ability to retain information. It’s not important how much information you can memorize, but knowing where to find it.
In years 1 and 2, begin to develop a basic understanding of organizational awareness by understanding your role. Don’t just do the work; understand the “why” of your work. Understanding the “why” becomes more meaningful than simply “doing.”
Build a basic foundation of organizational awareness with the following questions in mind:
Why are my tasks necessary?
Who benefits from it?
How often are my tasks required?
What happens if my tasks are not completed on time?
Do my tasks have an impact on my co-workers or the division?
These questions will help you understand the tasks required for your position. Understanding the “why” behind your tasks/projects will also help you articulate your accomplishments and contributions.
While working on understanding your position, research the following areas to gain a deeper understanding of the organization.
History: Become familiar with the organization's history and its leaders. This can help with understanding how the culture was developed.
Mission Statements: The organization’s mission statements, including its mission, values, goals, and beliefs, will also help develop an understanding of its culture.
Organizational Structure: The organizational chart is more than just a chart of hierarchy. It can serve as your map to initiate networking and your next career move.
Networking: Developing network connections needs to start within the organization. It is essential to become familiar with your coworkers, counterparts, and/or key points of contact. While you have tasks and projects to work on, the truth is that you do not work alone.
Moving into intermediate.
In years 2 and 3, while developing a basic understanding of the organization, you will find that your initial questions will start to focus on two crucial factors:
Understanding how the organization operates
Understanding how you can support or collaborate with your co-workers
There are three ways to learn about the operations of your tasks/projects: written policies, training, and word of mouth (the unwritten rules). Knowing where to find and being able to interpret organizational information demonstrates intermediate knowledge.
Prioritizing your tasks and projects to support and collaborate with others also demonstrates intermediate knowledge. Meaning, you understand that if necessary, you would need to shift your focus away from a task/project to support or collaborate with others within your organization because your assistance could impact a coworker’s outcome.
Intermediate knowledge involves an understanding of your tasks and projects, as well as their implications within your division or organization.
Advancing your knowledge.
In years 3 and 4, you should be able to analyze the efficiency of the organization's processes and procedures that are within your purview. If they can warrant improvement, then it may be time to explore potential enhancements. You can only apply enhancements when you truly understand the organization’s operations inside and out. This means you have a thorough understanding of where a process starts, how to manage it, and how to acquire approval to keep it moving forward.
Applying process improvement techniques isn’t something that can simply happen overnight. With advanced organizational awareness, you can find a way to say “yes” while still adhering to the organization’s regulations, policies, and procedures. You’ll need to be mindful of enhancing the technical and regulatory factors of the organization’s operations.
And, don’t forget your network connections? As you advance your knowledge of organizational awareness, so does theirs. After years of working together, you will have built strong, unspoken trust. In a way, they become your “circle of trust.” These are coworkers who will eventually become your confidants in times of need. Just remember that the door of trust swings both ways.
Becoming an expert.
It’s impossible to become an expert in weeks or even months. It will take years of development and experience to gain enough knowledge to be considered an expert.
In years 4 and 5, you should be making significant contributions; you are no longer just doing your job. You are contributing in a meaningful way. As your knowledge increases, the organization will start to have a vested interest in your skills because they see you as someone who can achieve the organizational objectives and goals.
At this point in your profession, you may be considered a subject matter expert. Your contribution not only influences the growth of the organization but you are part of identifying solutions and providing constructive recommendations through strategic thinking and planning.
The ability to think strategically and plan effectively comes from understanding the process and procedures, setting clear objectives, and leveraging your “circle of trust.” In a professional environment, it’s your essential points of contact or subject matter expert counterparts who can help to get things done. They know how to find a way to “yes” because they know how the organization works; they have read the fine print of the policies and procedures, or they have gained years of experience and understand how to navigate their area with precision.
The most crucial factor when leveraging your “circle of trust” is to ensure that it is a “circle of mutual trust.” Meaning, when you are requesting for that “yes” you are doing it with the intention that 1. It is for the benefit of the organization and not personally, and 2. You can reciprocate when your counterpart is requesting assistance from you to help them achieve their “yes” objective.
Lastly, the final part to building organizational awareness ties to understanding the internal or external influential factors that can influence or contribute to the organization. Every organization has internal and external influential factors, even if they are not immediately apparent.
Every organization will have a group of senior leaders who oversee their areas of responsibility. These individuals are the internal influential factors that could have a direct or indirect impact on your work within the organization. Whether it is a new policy, process, or operating system. Changes to any one of these areas could have an impact to the culture of the organization and your work.
Additionally, every organization has both external partners and competitors. The decision of external organizations or stakeholders could have a direct or indirect impact to the decision making within the organization and in turn impact the way you work.
An organization's subject matter expert understands that any bit of information is always newsworthy. No news is good news, but any news is always worth considering. This is how subject matter experts build their strategic thinking and planning skills. They keep a pulse on their surroundings.
Conclusion
Organizational awareness is about staying in tune and keeping a pulse on what happens within and around the organization. This is achieved by allowing yourself time to learn and develop over the years, thereby cultivating a deep understanding of the operations, key players, and internal and external influential factors.
Developing organizational awareness is definitely to your advantage. Without it, you may feel very disconnected when the organization makes difficult decisions that impact your workload.
Don’t wait for someone to guide you through, continue to do your research and take…
“Professional growth in your hands!”
Ish & Raquel
