How ‘CSW’ can help your organization

Picture this: a team overwhelmed with tasks, their deadlines not met and their work delivered mostly subpar. The team members are not only struggling but of course, team deliverables and business outcomes may be affected as well. This may be a scenario in your office and unfortunately, in many other organizations.

In our fast-paced, complex and data-driven environment, members of your team can easily get overwhelmed with information and tasks and can struggle with what seems to be simple decision-making. This is where “completed staff work” or CSW matters to your team, your organization and even in your personal life.

Completed staff work is a principle of management that states that subordinates are responsible for submitting written recommendations to superiors so that the superior needs to do nothing further in the process other than to review the submitted document and indicate approval or disapproval.

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We asked Abigail Fulgueras-De Leon, resource person of Inquirer Academy on CSW, for her thoughts.

CSW is not just a process or a tool. It is a mindset. It is a cultural shift that can dramatically improve performance and significantly elevate efficiency and effectiveness. A CSW mindset cultivates growth and embraces challenges. It teaches how to think critically, solve problems effectively and develop a positive attitude.

By understanding the CSW, you and your team can develop skills such as the ability to:

Analyze

Learn how to define problems, gather information and analyze data. Imagine that your team members, instead of blindly launching a marketing campaign, are now able to pause and think of prerequisites like analyzing your target audience, competitor landscape and current market trends. They could identify the root cause of a recent sales decline and sift through a myriad of other information.

Create

Develop creative solutions and make informed decisions. Your team not only goes through the data but is now able to come to you with very well-crafted plans and options that you can readily understand and decide on for implementation.

Execute

Implement plans effectively and monitor progress. Of course, the team does not end with plan submission; they should have the foresight to look into needed resources and requirements to fully execute your approved plan as well as monitor and evaluate, to gather lessons learned for improvement of next projects.

By embracing the CSW principles and practices, you and your team will embrace a mindset as well as develop skills that not only get things done, but get them done efficiently, effectively, and with a smile. INQ

De Leon will facilitate a workshop titled “Completed Staff Work: Recommending Solutions with Efficiency” on Dec. 6. The course will benefit specialists, supervisors and managers from the government and private sector.

For your other learning needs, Inquirer Academy could assist you in designing and facilitating a live workshop, a webinar, or a self-paced online course for your organization. For more information, write to [email protected], or send an SMS to these numbers 0919.3428667 and 0998.9641731.The author is the executive director of Inquirer Academy.