But seriously: I like the idea of organizational health. But what is health (German: Gesundheit)?

The other day I was at the dentist and he said to me: “We see you more holistically. We´re trying to increase your ability to compensate.” (German: Kompensationsfähigkeit, English: compensationability? 😉

That struck a chord in me. Yes, I guess to be healthy means to be able to compensate all sorts of deviations from some mean. A body (or any product) is build to “function” in a certain kind of environment. It´s exposed to lots of influences, e.g. temperature, pressure, food etc. They may be physical, chemical or psychological.

The wider the range of influence variations a body/product (or organization for that matter) can cope with, the healthier it is. I think, this is also in line with resilience research on traumatized people.

So when assessing an organization the question is: How strong is its ability to compensate? Can it cope with 10% more support calls? Can it cope with 20% less revenue? Can it cope with 15% more fluctuation in staff? Can it cope with 5% more feature requests? Can it cope with a shortened technology cycle? Can it cope with 20% more competition?

My impression is, the ability to compensate in general is very low. People are working long hours (very ineffectively). There is not much money in the background. Costs have been cut to the bare metal. Ability to innovate is low. No time for learning.

But this all would nicely fit under the umbrella of “ability to compensate”, I guess, as a measure for health.