The Institutional Clarity Index

Does your institution work the way you believe it should?

Most executive teams know what their institution is meant to achieve, but few can be sure it is happening in every unit. The Index shows you, pillar by pillar, where the institution holds and where it slips, so you know where to act first.

Take the free Pulse Check Commission an assessment

For executive teams and boards. Public and private.

Illustrative result

0 of 275

Fifty-five questions, put to the people who run the institution, with proof in practice asked for each answer. The result is a score out of 275 across six pillars, and a clear view of which pillar to strengthen first.

The premise

Every executive team holds a picture of its institution. The Index tests it.

The picture is tested against practice in six pillars: Mandate and Purpose, Strategic Clarity, Governance Discipline, Execution Systems, Communication Credibility, and Institutional Trust and Legitimacy. Where the picture and the practice part company is where the work begins.

Mandate and Purpose

Strategic Clarity

Governance Discipline

Execution Systems

Communication Credibility

Institutional Trust and Legitimacy

What leaders see

Busy is not the same as working.

The structure is in place and the committees meet.
Staff are committed and working hard.
Yet the goals stay out of reach, so the answer is more training or a new system.

We call this Execution Theatre.

What is happening

A lack of clarity in one pillar.

Leaders read the mandate in different ways.
Decisions have no single owner, so they wait or get made by whoever is in the room.
Work moves on individual effort, and stalls when those individuals move on.

The cause is usually lower down than leaders expect. The Index finds which pillar it is.

What our clients found

One company. One executive committee. Several pictures of it.

A private company

The executive committee found that its controls were in place, but that its leaders saw the company very differently from one another. Its first commitments were clear ownership of recurring decisions and declaring conflicts of interest before a decision rather than after.

“We thought we were one leadership team looking at one company. The Index showed us how differently each of us saw it, and exactly where the pictures differed. That became our agenda for the next eight weeks.”Executive committee, a private company

Read all three findings

Ways to begin

Three ways in.

Pulse Check

Free

Fifteen questions for any leader who wants a first view of where the institution stands.

Take the Pulse Check

For institutions

Institutional Clarity Assessment

By proposal

The full Index across your units, a facilitated agreement session, the full report, the action map and a debrief with the executive team.

Request a proposal

Index Licence

By proposal

For institutions that reassess once, twice or four times a year, so the board can see each pillar move over time.

Ask about the licence

Public bodies can also request a short reading prepared from their own published documents, at no cost.

Find the pillar that is holding your institution back.

Clarity is how institutions earn trust.

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