High Performing Organisations

A high-performing organisation achieves its long-term goals based on both financial and non-financial criteria, that are significantly higher than other organisations operating within the same industrial sector.

They accomplish this by focusing their resources in a disciplined way, using methods of lean and Six Sigma to eradicate all areas of non-value-adding activities within the organisation surrounding:

• Its management activity.

• The non-productive use of financial resources.

• Eliminating time deficiencies within its operational parameters.

High-performing organisations concentrate on ensuring the efficient use of their resources over the long term by focusing, in a tightly disciplined way, on the aspects of the organisation that are of the utmost importance to the organisation's management team, staff, and customers. 

The commercial environment is changing at an ever-increasing pace in a globally competitive and increasingly technologically sophisticated way. Some organisations will rise to the challenge and thrive, whilst others will not. However, the most successful organisations will be those whose performance is pushed to the highest levels of attainment within their sector, which creates a culture and blueprint for outperforming their peers in the long term.
 
Within lower-performing organisations, management teams and staff work frantically, often running on the spot regarding their achievements as they become strangulated by their lack of ability to make decisions to navigate their strategic direction. As they procrastinate in their angst at not wanting to upset anyone by keeping everyone happy at the expense of progress, their efforts are getting their organisation nowhere and may even be hurting its progress.
 
That is not to say that people should always be respected. This is, of course, of paramount importance. People do get things wrong, and it is equally important to let them know that they are wrong as it is to refocus them. Through motivation, coaching, and mentoring, the aim must be to get them back onto the right path for their personal development through a sense of achievement that contributes to the high performance of the organisation and the team to which they belong.
 
However, an organisation must utilise high-performing teams to be a high-performing organisation. Often, because staff, teams and management functions are not in sync, the organisation's direction, objectives and goals become unfocused. This leads to the organisation's performance reducing, becoming a low-performance organisation. The effort of staff and teams frequently goes around in circles because no one is clear on the organisation's direction, objectives, and goals, the primary input of which is the organisation's vision, mission, and values statement.
 
A high-performing organisation's staff, teams and management function are characterised by clarity and coordination. Each part of the organisation's structure plays a crucial role in driving the organisation forward. The actions of the individual, team and management contribute to the organisation's direction, objectives, and goals, as each part of the structure adds to the organisation's overall success. This enables the organisation to reach levels of achievement significantly better than those of its peer group by focusing in a disciplined way on the issues of the highest importance to the organisation.
 
A five-year study by the HPO Centre in the Netherlands shows that high performance within organisations matters because the better the organisation's performance, the better the bottom line. Organisations that adopted a high-performance ethos increased their revenues by 10%, profitability by 26% and total shareholder return by 23%, achieving higher customer satisfaction and loyalty with fewer customer complaints.
 
Morale and the clarity of the organisation's direction, objectives and goals are strategically crucial, as when the organisation stops focusing on what matters, the organisation will pay the price in lost productivity, reduced turnover and increased costs as staff and teams leave the organisation to find greener pastures. New staff will only stay long if the original problems surrounding the organisation's culture and leadership are resolved. There are strategically essential qualities that organisations must have to be considered high performers:

• Quality of Management: Within a high-performance organisation, designated leaders within the management function steer the organisation and plan. These leaders create the organisation's strategic direction to achieve excellence by bringing out the best in staff and teams, helping each to adapt to changing circumstances, and promoting the best levels of harmonious teamwork. The management function must act with integrity and serve as role models for staff and teams with credible and consistent ethical standards that gain the trust and respect of those around them in a people-focused, results-oriented way. They make swift and effective decisions instead of overanalysing. They encourage others to do the same by giving their staff and teams continuous support, coaching and the freedom to act in ways consistent with the organisation's standards to take calculated risks, make tough decisions and hold themselves accountable for their choices.

• Continuous Improvement and Renewal: All high-performing organisations integrate the highest standards of excellence into their operating structures and introduce people to these standards when they join the organisation. The standards are more than just words in a mission statement. They are a living document in which staff are encouraged to share their ideas and knowledge to bring fresh impetus to the table to ensure that the organisation is focused on improvement.

• Openness and Action Orientation: Communication is like the game "telephone", where people whisper a message to the next person along the line, and the person at the end of the line must shout out the news to see if they have got the statement correct. When organisational communication happens this way, staff do not hear the intended message. High-performing organisations do the opposite of the "telephone" game as they establish open, multidirectional lines of communication. This ensures that messages flow freely and laterally between staff and teams. With solid communication channels, an organisation can strive for excellence through innovation, staying ahead of the market sector by creating new sources of competitive advantage by evolving its core competencies and finding ways to do it better and more cost-effectively.

• Long-Term Thinking: High-performing organisations have well-defined vision, mission, and value statements that convey the reason for their existence. These statements focus on long-term outcomes rather than short-term gains. Relationships are central to these statements as high-performance organisations work hard to understand what their stakeholders want, what they stand for, and how they can add value to build sustainable relationships. Staff and teams within high-performing organisations are not only clear about the vision, but they also understand what they must achieve for the organisation to deliver its vision of success. They understand the connection between the job roles of staff and the organisation's vision, mission and values, where the organisation's staff and teams move in the same direction as everyone is focused on the same goals and objectives.

• Quality of Staff: Organisations adopting high-performance habits tend to assemble a diverse and balanced body of staff and teams, where individual personalities do not dominate, and staff work together to achieve mission-critical aspects of the organisation's strategy. Training and mentoring are the foundation of a high-performing organisation, as staff are encouraged to be flexible and resilient through leaders who motivate staff to achieve their full potential by applying entrepreneurial thinking to their job roles. This results in a highly creative workforce where people become proactive, solutions-focused, and comfortable taking risks.

Training and mentoring are the foundation of a high-performing organisation, as staff are encouraged to be flexible and resilient through leaders who motivate staff to achieve their full potential by applying entrepreneurial thinking to their job roles. This results in a highly creative workforce where people become proactive, solutions-focused, and comfortable taking risks.

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