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Certain characteristics determine how a company responds to challenges, and once these are identified, the company can work to improve its performance.
Like people, health insurance companies have individual personalities that can affect their performance. By examining key traits, a company can identify its organizational "DNA"-embedded characteristics that determine how the company responds to challenges. Once those traits have been identified, a company can work to improve those traits-and improve its performance.
In a recent online poll, Booz Allen Hamilton asked more than 4,000 executives and middle managers at U.S. companies, including more than 500 from the health-care industry, to answer 19 questions to help them identify their organization's unique characteristics, or DNA (see www.orgdna.com). The questions were organized around four critical organizational features-decision rights, motivators, information and structure.The way these four dimensions combine defines an organization's DNA.
* Decision Rights: Specify who has the authority to make which decisions. Clarifying these rights puts flesh on an organization chart and reveals where responsibility lies. Clear decision rights translate into lower costs and speedier execution.
* Motivators: The incentive mechanisms that encourage employees...