Developed by Marvin Weisbord, the Weisbord’s Six-Box Model is used to assess a company’s functioning and evaluate its performance. The main purpose of this model is to uncover issues that might have been missed or overlooked by top management. The model takes a comprehensive, holistic approach for evaluating business performance by examining six research areas within the organizational structure. By diving the research into smaller focus areas, analysts can simplify a complex organizational structure and identify issues and inefficiencies. The six research areas covered in this model are:
1. Purpose
The first research area looks into the organizational objectives, including the company’s vision and mission. Here, you need to understand what type of business you are in, what industry you are competing in, and what you see the business in the long-term future. Although it might seem pretty simplistic at first, having the right foundations before you move to into more complex research areas is vital.
2. Structure
Another area examined in Weisbord’s Six-Box Model is the organizational structure, including power relationships, hierarchy and overall formal relationships within the company. By evaluating these aspects, you can gain a deeper understanding of how your business operates on a daily basis. In turn, you should be able to assess whether the current organizational structure of your company is functioning well and what could be improved to correct inefficiencies.
3. Relationships
Relationship management plays a key role in business performance; whether they are direct, indirect, formal and informal. You will need to establish strong, long-term relationships and resolve conflicts the moment they occur in order to allow healthy relationships to grow.
4. Rewards
Reward systems are much more important than you think. When your employees have put that extra little additional work it is important to acknowledge their efforts and reward them for their hard work. This way, employees will feel motivated to keep up the hard work, or even try harder. Rewards do not always have to be in the form of money, but they might also be given in an alternative tangible or intangible way, such as discounts and coupons at particular shops or a free dinner.
5. Leadership
When strong leadership is in place, the organizational structure works better and the whole organizational performance is roaming. Being a leader is not that simple and a leader is much different than a manager. A successful leader is the one who can influence, inspire and motivate the team on foundations of trust, admiral and confidence. Wise leaders should feed constructive communication among their people and remain honest, truthful and authentic throughout all their responsibilities.
6. Helpful Mechanisms
The last research area looks into the helpful mechanisms and technologies that help employees excel at their work, and as a result, boost the organizational performance. As technology advances and markets are continuously changing, the helpful mechanisms are also changing. So you will need to keep a close eye on what is going on in order to stay competitive and efficient. Some examples of helpful mechanisms are technology, skills and raw materials.