I read an amazing statistic on the web. “If everyone of the 126,685,145 people who voted in the presidential election, regardless of party affiliation, devoted just one day of service to their community, it would equal over a billion man hours in a highly concentrated timeframe. The scope of this kind of participation is unprecedented and could bring solutions to thousands of communities in need.”

What an incredible way to think about giving. I believe we can all contribute in many ways. Typically, I give time to my community in smaller increments of dedicated time. I like to contribute where I know I am actually using my expertise, as opposed to throwing brute force or hours at a problem. Would I have more impact if I put all of the hours together?

I have great inspirations in the area of donating, such as Dave Stone of First Rate Investment Systems, one of the most giving people I have ever met in this world. The evidence of his giving spirit can be read in one of his earlier First Rate newsletters. He not only gives himself but inspires his employees to give and congratulates their efforts.

Need help deciding what method best suits your company or you as an individual? The Volunteer Family site provides a framework to select what best fits your interests and capabilities. The SERVE.GOV site enables you to search for a volunteer opportunity, shares additional source links, as well as provides toolkits to get started with your volunteer program.

I applaud my friends, employees, family members, interns, and all who dedicate time to their community to help make it a better place. I challenge all of us to extend our hands just a little further to help wherever our hearts tells us we can. We should all give in the ways that are best suited to us. Giving of yourself can only lead to living a richer life. I will pledge to do more with my blessed life to help others do more with theirs.

Cheers,
Lois

Why is this visualization of the organization still so important? An org chart gives a clear definition of very important relationships.

• Who is responsible for you?
• Who are you responsible for?
• Whose budget do you belong to?
• Who will conduct your performance appraisal?
• Who will you consider as your most probable candidate to succeed you in the succession plan?
• Who should you go to when you have a concern about something in the business?

There are reasons why Sarbanes–Oxley audits utilize an org chart during several steps of the process. There is a real need for an accountability span of control.

Let’s look at the relationship aspect of the org chart even more. Employee retention is vital to the health of an organization. It’s often said that people don’t leave a company, they leave their supervisor. So, you want to turn that around and keep people because of their supervisor. You want to know clearly who is ultimately responsible for each person’s job satisfaction, besides the individual. Objectives are tied to retention and employee engagement in many companies; that means it is even more important to build the relationships up and down the chain of command. Dotted-line reporting, or matrix organizations, creates an ever greater need to visualize the relationships between people – the multiple responsibilities we hold to each other.

I’d like to hear about your experience with the formal relationship links you maintain. Next week is the Aquire User Conference, and I am really looking forward to hearing from the attendees about their recent issues and rewards of having clean organizational charts available to their entire workforce.

There will be more discussion in this blog about this topic – I hope you will add your ideas to the comments for discussion.

Cheers,
Lois