AI is all the rage these days. I wondered what such (hopefully) less biased intelligence would come up with for a political organization committed to making a difference and achieving certain goals. My concern was that many of these organizations have some righteous objectives as well as other good-intention goals that are less focused toward the main target. The list of too many things to be done or involved with spreads the wealth of talent and activity too thinly and perhaps takes away from the accomplishment of that which is the essential reason for the group. What does AI say?
AI queries resulted in direct responses from the bot as well as resourced and cited responses. To the question of political organization effectiveness problems, the following was referenced by AI: a paper by Dorie Clark, a marketing strategist and keynote speaker who teaches at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. Her latest book is The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World (HBR Press, 2021)
Points made by Professor Clark include: 1- Choosing a single priority goal to focus group efforts on. She warns that progress is stymied if you have too many folks going off in too many directions. 2- Set goal metrics to evaluate progress. Some objectives may be sequential. At any rate, if there is insufficient progress, it needs a rethink.
“In the corporate world — and our culture more broadly — there’s always a push to do more, and do it quickly. But by taking a step back to evaluate your goals and determine which is most important to focus on right now, you can make targeted, demonstrable progress that facilitates your long-term ambitions.”
Here are some of the “original thoughts” excerpts (with citations) by the AI:
- Vague Objectives: When a board continues the same committee structure from year to year without giving much thought to what the committees do or whether they are still relevant, the committees can end up with vague objectives. This can result in committee meetings that are endless discussions with no results achieved, leading to boredom or frustration among committee members.
- Committees with no work can be abolished, and committees with overlapping work can be merged.
- Ineffective committees that do not contribute much to the organization. Overall, it is important for political organizations to regularly evaluate their existing committee structure.
- Lack of Focus: When an organization has too many goals, it can be difficult to focus on any one goal and make meaningful progress. This can result in a lack of direction and a failure to achieve any of the organization’s objectives (Harvard Business Review) 1.
- Overload: Having too many goals can lead to overload, which can result in costly productivity and quality problems, as well as burnout. This can happen when leaders are unaware of all the initiatives underway and their impact on the organization, or when organizational politics conspires to let initiatives continue long after they should have run their course. (tab)hbr.org/2018/09/too-many-projects)
- “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do,” as Michael Porter famously wrote.
- Ineffective Decision-Making: When an organization has too many goals, it can be difficult to make effective decisions. This is because there are too many competing priorities and it is difficult to determine which goals are most important. As a result, decision-making can become slow and ineffective.
- Delegation Challenges: Delegation is the art or process of assigning specific duties and responsibilities to subordinates in an organization. However, when a political action group undertakes too many issues, it can be difficult to effectively delegate responsibilities. This is because there are too many competing priorities and it is difficult to determine which tasks should be delegated to whom.
Overall, it is important for political action groups to have a clear set of priorities that are aligned with their overall strategic vision. This can help ensure that the group is focused and able to make effective decisions in pursuit of its objectives.