Do you know an efficient approach to facilitate a discussion to straighten out badly confused roles and responsibilities within an organization?

A component of organization development is clarifying the roles, responsibilities and authorities of leadership and staff. In many instances, roles are poorly defined or assigned to the wrong people. Consultants have developed techniques to help clients sort these out, one of which is the RACI chart.

RACI (there are variants) stands for Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed. These represent the various roles an individual would take relative to key functions. It may be used anytime but is most useful when a organization is undertaking a new initiative or a new team has been formed.

To create a RACI chart, set up a matrix with major functions as the rows and key positions (or named individuals) as column headers. Cells are designated with an R, A C or I, as appropriate, to indicate the role an individual plays. With experience, you will begin to understand what certain patterns mean and recognize how to reallocate staff authorities.

Tip: For a more complete description of how this technique works, see one of many articles and examples of RACI charts. A quick look at how others have implemented RACI reveals that there is great latitude in how you design your approach.

© 2010 Institute of Management Consultants USA

I'm looking for competitive intelligence on a prospect. I have looked at the Leadership Library and recent annual reports, asked competitors about their differentiators, figured out where the executives spend their community time, set up a press clipping and Topix analysis, and asked around. I really want this client. Anything else I can do to get an inside perspective?

Sounds like you are well along in scoping out your prospect. You have covered the factual, news and opinion angles. Good for you. Not enough people do this kind of research on a prospective client before trying to engage them.

Here's one area you may not have thought of: the Board of Directors (or a CEO advisory body). Directors are presumably selected because they bring financial, market, technological, management or other resources to the company. Collectively, they provide the governance to drive a company efficiently and effectively forward.

If we assume this is true for a moment, take a look at Directors individually and as a group. What does each one bring? What areas of expertise and perspective do they have? Have there been any recent shakeups on the Board or any Directors brought in for a specific reason? Finally, do you know any of them well enough to talk with them about what the company needs? There are worse references to have than a company Director.

Conversely, it may be the case that the Board itself is one of several problems the company faces. In this case, your analysis of how well the Board is constituted might provide an additional topic of discussion with the executive to who you are offering your services.

Tip: Use caution when approaching individual Directors and/or discussing your conclusions about the role and performance of the Board with your future client. Recognize that you are not on the inside and are going to be missing a lot of information. However, properly qualified, the executive is likely to be impressed with your thoroughness in looking beyond traditional competitive intelligence sources.

© 2010 Institute of Management Consultants USA