5 Little-Known Factors That Could Affect Your High Performance Organization
Posted by Doreen McGunagle on Fri, May 25, 2012 @ 07:00 AM
Growing Your Business | Global Strategic Management Solutions
A High Performance Organization or HPO could be referred to as the Crème de la Crème amongst businesses. It is a model organization. It is a successful organization. It has an excellent reputation not only with its customers but also with its competitors. It has a satisfied workforce all of whom are proud to be associated with a company which is looked up to by the community at large. So the question that arises is how you can transform your company to an HPO.
For years there have been studies on business models, business strategies and the like. Some of them work for some people some of the time. Nowadays the catch word may be culture. Whatever the appellation used, at the end of the day it all boils down to the people who work in the company and how they are managed. Call it personnel management or human resources. What matters is that your workforce is a part and parcel of your company. It should be in their interests as much as to make it an HPO. You have to get them involved.
Perhaps passion is one of the adjuncts of being an HPO. A passion for what you make or what you do. This feeling must pervade every level of the company. This will lead to faster and better decision making which is an integral part of success.
Creativity is another sure path to progress. It is not simply a question of encouraging your workforce to be innovative however. You want your company to become synonymous with creativity within your industry. That way you will attract the best brains coming out of college and university.
Failure is also important. Failure and how you handle it. No one can be right all the time. Experiments do go wrong. It is important that there are mechanisms in place to cope. The old fashioned adage of back to the drawing board probably about best sums up the right attitude. If your employees are waiting for the storm to break it is going to affect their work, make them less productive and unhappy. It is just not worth it. 
Long term planning is essential too. Not just in product or service development or financial growth but in people. That means your workers and your customers. They must all be considered. If you decide, for example, to relocate to a new development in a neighboring town, think how your staff will be affected. You may save on rent but lose a lot of good workers to a competitor.
Encourage everyone who works for you to feel they belong. They should feel free to come along with suggestions on any aspect of the business. Give them a patient hearing and make sure that they understand why it cannot be done if it is impractical. One day they might come up with an award winner.
Becoming a High Performance Organization will not happen overnight. It can take several years of hard work. The results should be worthwhile in the end.
