Making High Performance
Happen If someone invited you to the auto show to see a high-performance race car, you probably have a general picture in your minds eye of what you would see when you got there, even though you may not know what kind of engine or fuel injection or special suspension system the car had. For most of us, the same is true when people mention high-performance organizations. We have a general idea of what they mean, although we may not be able to define the term with any great specificity. But high-performing organizations do have identifiable attributes. In our upcoming book, Making Common Sense Common Practice, we discuss five major practices that make high performance possible (Fig. 1). As you will see, each is a building block, an interlocking step that must be completed before moving on to the next.
Figure 1
1. Know where you’re going High-performing organizations know where they are going. Their leaders set clear purpose and direction at all levels so that everyone has a vivid understanding of where the enterprise is heading and what they must personally do to help the organization get there. Clear purpose and direction emerge from a concise, compelling vision, a clear mission statement and the enumeration of common values held by the organization and its people. It is woven further into the fabric of the corporate culture by translating each tenet into the organizations strategic business planning process, its performance management and rewards systems, even into individual job descriptions. Executives in a high-performing organization foster the sense of purpose by frequently — and very visibly — referring to the corporate vision, mission and values. They regularly review these and gauge the organizations progress towards reaching them, reporting back to the organization with a degree of attention and seriousness that matches their concern with “the numbers.” As a result, the energies of all members of a high-performing organization are focused on a common purpose. 2. Ensure people have what it takes Once a high-performing enterprise knows where it’s going, it must make certain its people have what it takes to get it there. In other words, the purpose and direction chosen determine the kind of competencies workers must possess. For example, Lambroghini may need R&D specialists to keep its design, technology and product features on the cutting edge. In contrast, Hyundai needs experts who can obtain raw materials at competitive prices and people who know how to transport autos to market in the most economic manner. Any change in the mission of the organization creates the need for change in required competencies. Once new goals are set, the organization begins a systematic assessment of the competencies it will require to accomplish its mission. Next, the current inventory of skills and competencies is evaluated and compared to the assessed needs. Many required competencies will be covered by current staffing, though some retraining will probably be required. Other skills will need to be obtained through new hires. In short, the organization must know what it needs before you can go about getting it. 3. Develop and enable them High-performing organizations are characterized by committed leaders who enable and empower every member of the organization to contribute fully. Dedicated to continuous learning, leaders actively promote training and development that specifically addresses the competencies required by the organization’s mission. They challenge themselves and their people to stretch and grow. By their example, they cultivate a culture that expects and supports continuous improvement. 4. Help them stay on track With the direction set and with competent, enabled people to get there, the organization is on track to meet its goals. But what keeps things on track? Like our high-performance race car, high-performance organizations also require fine tuning and watchful maintenance. An appropriate rewards program and course-correcting feedback can help prevent an organization from swerving off the track. Basing performance standards on a profile of required competencies, enables an organization to maintain an emphasis on the skills, behaviors and actions that hold it on course. High-performance standards should be reinforced with frequent and timely feedback. A wide variety of formal and informal feedback methods can be employed, including self-observation, multi-rater feedback, coaching and mentoring. Trust is an essential ingredient not only for improving performance but sustaining it during turbulent times. The more trust an organization engenders among its people, the more those people will be committed to the mission, goals and bottom-line results of the organization. 5. Nurture a trusting environment Trust, however, is a complex feeling and one that cannot be coerced. There is no secret recipe to generate trust. The best an organization can do is to create and nurture a trusting environment. But we can identify four key characteristics essential to building trust: Integrity - Acting in a forthright and truthful manner. “We MEAN what we say.” Consistency - Maintaining a compatibility between words and actions. “We DO what we say.” Reliability - Dependable. Keeping promises. “You can count on what we do and say.” Interdependence - The implication of a relationship, a sense of two parties relying on each other, and accordingly acting in each other’s best interest. “We are all in this together.” Think of the symmetry between these characteristics and the ideas represented in the high performance model. In any organization, when we “know where were going” people can understand how they may serve and also profit in their association with us. Moreover, when our actions are consistent with the things we espouse in our vision, mission and values, trust grows. That means virtually every new initiative provides an opportunity to build trust — as long as what we do doesn't contradict what we say. When we ensure we have the people to get us there, we again verify the organization’s commitment to its vision, mission and goals. We make it clear to our people that there’s an integral place for them in the enterprise and at the same time we clearly communicate our performance and behavior expectations. Our commitment to training and our efforts to develop and enable workers indicate a sincere interest in all members of the organization. We willingly invest in their personal growth, not merely to enhance their value to us but to prepare them for higher position and greater marketability. Acting in the interest of others builds trust. We also demonstrate our regard for people by keeping them on track, providing the feedback and rewards that help the recipient improve performance. We build trust by rewarding the actions and behaviors we ask for and expect. Trust is the glue that holds everything together. Who would follow the vision of someone they didn’t trust? What would a new mission statement matter if no one believed in its author? How effective would feedback be if the recipient didn’t trust its source? On the other hand, the four steps outlined in our high-performance model build trust when pursued with integrity, consistency and reliability. So, by committing to these practices, you’ll be laying the foundation on which trust can grow and high performance can flourish. What results is an organization hitting on all cylinders with the right people in the right jobs, working to accomplish a set of common goals for an organization committed to constant improvement. That’s as high performance as high performance gets. |
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