The Outstanding Organization

These last couple of weeks I’ve had the pleasure of reading, The Outstanding Organization, by Karen Martin.  I’ll tell you what - every organization that’s trying to improve or going through anything like a merger or restructuring should be reading this book.

There have been NUMEROUS books written on performance improvement by numerous “experts”, but they’re all, in some way, very similar . . . lots of theories.

In, The Outstanding Organization, Karen Martin, in five chapters, explains the straight to the point, duh factor of how to succeed.  She says that chaos is the main underlying issue in failed improvement.  “Chaos sabotages your ability to provide value to your customers, satisfy shareholders, . . .”  “Left unchecked, chaos destroys everything that’s good about an organization.”  Too many times, organizations start to plan without looking enough at what’s already happening and jump into the fire too quickly.

Chapter One begins right where the book should - the fundamentals.  I’ve had a couple of friends who have “flipped” houses.  What do you think the first thing is that they look at when checking out new properties?  The foundation.  Without a good foundation in business, you’re going to hold onto chaos and be unable to develop any kind of consistency.

From there Martin goes into creating clarity - truth seeking and truth telling.  Without it causes a psychological drain on everyone involved.

I loved the section on the problem of lack of focus.  She calls this “organizational attention-deficit-disorder.”  There must be focus and a sense of discipline instilled in the organization in order to get over the hurdles.

And lastly is employee engagement.  People talk and talk and talk about it, but as Karen says, it’s “the single largest contributor to an organization’s success”.

This book is based on Martin’s extensive research and experience with a number of organizations.  She taught these organizations not to accept the chaos as a norm but to fall back to the fundamentals and open the curtains to improvement.

If you’re looking for some no-nonsense ways to get your organization on, or back on track, you need, The Outstanding Organization.


Author, speaker, and consultant, Karen Martin, provides practical strategies and tools for building an Outstanding Organization. The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence is available at bookstores nationwide and on Amazon.