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To assess the gap between where the organization wants to be and what it currently can produce, I use the organizational process model shown in Figure 21. This tool helps me view the organization at the macro level and allows me to see at a glance what the organization is accomplishing from a task perspective. It helps indicate whether the work being done is consistent with the organization’s vision and mission.

Moreover, the model identifies any gaps between present processes and future plans. A credit card company I worked with had its genesis in the postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s, enabling millions of consumers to buy electrical appliances. Although this company had been very successful for decades, competition for market share of appliances increased as the market became saturated. In addition, the spread of other credit resources began to squeeze this company’s profits. Soon the company was expanding into other kinds of businesses including dealer financing, retail space design, inventory financing, and even the financing of capital improvements for dealers. Each area now competed for the resources of the original credit card business, and the company found itself spread too thin. Divisions competed against each other for personnel and budget. And as the top leadership increasingly abandoned initiatives that didn’t produce short-term profits, the whole company’s morale spiraled downward.