I’d like to tell you a story about the importance of organizational alignment in reporting.

Many years ago, I had a role where I split my support time between two teams, although one team needed more support than a single analyst could give, and in the end, that department was eliminated. 

When I met this team, I asked my standard introductory questions, and their answers showed a lack of leadership and guidance. Whenever I ask managers what their positions are, I expect a response outlining their responsibilities and what outcomes they are trying to accomplish. Examples:

“I manage the call center night teams. I make sure the schedules are filled according to predicted call levels, I handle escalated customer problems, and whatever it takes to make sure my teams are happy and efficient.”

or

“I’m in charge of monitoring the quality in our widget production line. As soon as I see an issue, I pull samples from the line, inspect them, and discover the root cause of the quality issue.”

But when interviewing this team, the managers responded:

“On Thursdays, I pull these reports and send them to these people.”

“I hold quarterly update meetings.”

“When someone asks a question, I see if I can send an answer.”

Did you spot the difference? The team I supported answered the question with a list of tasks instead of their responsibilities. They didn’t know what they were doing to support their director, their division, or the organizational goals. All they knew was that they had to perform a list of tasks to keep their jobs.
Mind you, this team was incredibly hard working! Their schedules were packed with meetings, they even had meetings to prepare for meetings. They were dedicated, skilled professionals who jumped to work long hours when necessary.
They had two things working against them: 1. Lack of direction from their director, and 2. bad reporting.

Let’s talk about 2 first. This team worked with vital information, but their software had only a basic reporting package. They could track general activity, but any deep questions were left unanswered. Therefore, the department wasn’t able to make actionable contributions to their division. 

And back to problem 1. Lack of direction from their leaders. At some point in history, a director recognized a challenge and decided that a new department was required. There was a specific, direct, quantifiable reason that a department was required, but that reason was lost somewhere along the way. The existing department was working diligently every day, but they weren’t making a difference.

So let’s get to the point! What does this have to do with reporting!

If this company had a solid organizational reporting system, then this team’s goals would have been established at the time of creation and they would have a corresponding scorecard to document the goals. Reporting would have been created to track those goals. Each team member would have been hired to support the goals and they would understand what decisions they could make to achieve those goals. 

If reporting was a priority, then their lack of deep reporting would have been recognized as an immediate risk and action would have been taken. In this case, the severity of the problem was eventually realized and I was called in, but it was too late. By the time I had established a direct connection to their data and was ready to roll out a dynamic reporting suite, the company was struck with a financial crisis and the whole department was eliminated. 

I don’t want to debate if the department should have been eliminated, instead I want to focus on the impact. 

On a human level, there was a team struggling every day. Each individual must have known that they weren’t contributing in a meaningful way. There was turnover and there seemed to be an unspeakable frustration in our conversations. They wanted to do great work but they didn’t have the direction to know what success looked like, and they didn’t have to tools to achieve that success anyway. 

On an organizational level, resources were spent on a department that wasn’t making an organizational contribution.

What could have prevented this situation? A scorecard. A single report outlining the goals for the department. That scorecard would have been reviewed by the director, and if the goals were not being achieved, then action would have been taken immediately to give the team the tools they needed to succeed. 

But what if the director didn’t take action? That department scorecard would have goals that supported the division above it. When the divisional leader reviewed their own divisional scorecard then they would have seen there was a problem in a department a tier below. And the divisional leader would take action.

This is the strength of organizational reporting.