Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 10, 1 October 2016 — WHY SELF-ASSESSMENT? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHY SELF-ASSESSMENT?

To benefit our customers. . .. our beneficiaries. Over 40 years ago, "management" was a very bad word in nonprofit organizations. Because management meant "business," and the one thing a nonprofit was NOT was a

business! Today, nonprofits understand that they need management all the more because they have no eonventional bottom line. Now they need to learn how to use management so that they ean concentrate on their mission. For years, most nonprofits felt that good intentions were by themselves enough. (Peter Drucker: Managing In A TimeofGreatChange, 1995) And although OHA is a

state public agency with a high degree of autonomy and is responsible for

improving the weiibeing of Native Hawaiians, it does take on a nonprofit perception. It has an asset base of nearly $600 million plus land assets across the State making it Hawai'i's 13th largest landowner. Its Board is made up of nine members who are elected statewide to serve four-vear terms. and are

primarily tasked with setting up OHA policies and 'managing' the agency's trust as its top fiduciaries. We have to have discipline rooted in our mission. We have to manage our limited resources of our 'āina (land) and money for maximum effectiveness. And, we have to think clearly what results are best for our beneficiaries. The self-assessment process is a method for assessing what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what we must do to improve our organization's performance. It asks these five essential questions: What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? And what is our plan? Self-assessment is the essential tool. Drucker says, "The self-assessment tool forces an organization to focus on its mission. You cannot have the right definition of results without signifi-

cant input from your 'customers'... and please do not get into a debate over that term. In business, a customer is someone you must satisfy! If you don't, you have no results. And pretty soon, you have no business. In a nonprofit, whether you eall the customer a student, patient,

volunteer, (beneficiary ) . . . or anything else, the focus must be on what these individuals or groups value - on satisfying their needs, wants and aspirations." (Drucker: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices, 1993) The 'danger,' Drucker explains, is in acting on what you believe satisfies the customer. You will inevitably make wrong assumptions. "Leadership should not even try

to guess at the answers; it should always go to customers in a system-

atic quest for those answers. And so, in the self-assessment process, you will have a three-way conversation with your board, staff, and customers, and include eaeh of these perspectives in your discussions and decisions." (Drucker: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices, 1993) OHA trustees, in my humble opinion, ean expand our vision by listening to our beneficiaries, by encouraging constructive dissent and by looking at the sweeping transformation taking plaee in our society. We have vital judgments ahead: whether to change the mission, whether to abandon programs that have outlived their usefulness, and how to concentrate resources where we ean match opportunities with our commitment to help build community and change lives. Mahalo nui loa, A Hui Hou and God Bless! Trustee Leina'alaH

V LEO 'ELELE V > TRUSTEE MESSSAGES "

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Leina'ala Ahu lsa, Ph.D. TrustEE, At-largE

Courtesy Pholo