Managing for High Performance Reflection

 

High-performance organizations are firms that are developed and led by their founders to achieve a sustained high commitment from all stakeholders, employees, clients, and the community at large. This kind of organization stands out from the rest by maintaining their achievements over a long period of excellence. Any organization is bound to change for the better and usually by new managers who take charge in times of crisis when they use methodologies that focus on performance and commitment. Commitment and performance are essentials for the success of an organization despite the well-being of the economy. 

Performance alignment, psychological alignment, and capacity for learning and change are the organizational outcomes that should be achieved to ensure high performance, high commitment in an organization (Lagace 2007). To achieve a high-performance organization, the leader has to set a general direction as well as listen and involve other people to identify and get solutions for issues that arise. The leader has to have a compound stakeholder viewpoint while managing an organization. When leaders achieve the organizational outcomes and can maintain them over a certain period, they ensure that their organization will achieve a sustained high performance for a long time.

Performance alignment happens when the leaders establish winning strategies and manage to maintain that alignment with their structure, system, abilities, and culture. All firms go through strategic variations but HCHP organizations can realign faster with commitment from the employees. For high performance to be accomplished, all features of the organization’s strategy must be associated with the planned mission of the organization. In performance alignment, the strategy that is developed has to be distinctive, focused, and should be based on values (Beer 2009). This is because a focused and distinctive strategy to deliver value to the target client is necessary for sustained competitive advantage. A focused strategy enables the management to hire employees that are aligned to the kind of service being offered. The organization has to fit the strategy in performance alignment and so the strategy developed should be clear. This makes it possible for it to fit the organization and the people in it. If an alignment lacks in the strategy, it is difficult for it to be effectively implemented and performance is compromised. Strategy implementation is all about developing a design that facilitates execution.

High-performance organizations are clear about the attitudes, abilities, and behaviors required in the implementation process. They are clear about the qualities of employees that they want to work in the organization. This is because mistakes done in hiring can be costly and reduce the value proposition for customers and shareholders. In performance alignment, the organizational design controls have to be internally consistent. Consistency is necessary for creating employee trust and commitment to the objectives, values, and strategy (Beer 2009). Employees have to have an assurance that the management keeps its words. Internal consistency makes it hard for competitors to copy another organization’s strategy for its success. It is easy for a firm to copy other firm's policies but difficult to copy internally consistent practices. It takes some time to develop culture and employee attitudes and a manager who possesses the right style, values, and strategies needed to create a HCHP system.

Another organizational outcome that needs to be achieved and sustained is psychological alignment. High-performance companies can emotionally associate people with a bigger purpose. Performance management means managing with the heart where leaders create an organization that offers employees at any level in the organization a sense of higher purpose, challenges, and the capability to make a difference. This is something that employees are always yearning for but most of the time are denied that opportunity in their organizational life. Employees who are psychologically associated with the task and principles of the organization are driven from the inside compared to those that need motivation from incentives which tend to be a temporary motivation. With psychological alignment, teamwork and relationships are what drives behavior in the organization (Beer 2009). Willingly, people sacrifice their self-interests over the demanding objectives that are needed for high performance. For it to be achieved, HCHP organizations create and prioritize human resource management guidelines and practices. Organizations looking for psychological alignment create a distinct psychological contract between managers and employees which includes what the employees and the management believe they are getting and giving in the relationship. Normally organizations expect that managers and workers perform the given tasks to achieve performance values.

            In HCHP organizations with psychological alignment, the administration expects that employees will work in collaboration, supervise, and control themselves, work selflessly and constantly change and become accustomed. The HCHP organizations deliberately draft a psychological agreement that helps to bring about emotional commitment from their employees to the community. Employee expectation in HCHP organizations is so much more than money and reasonable treatment which is contrary to employees from other organizations (Beer 2009). They expect the management to abide by the values that connect them to the community to create trustworthy relationships, achievements, being involved, challenges, growth among others. The HCHP organizations choose employees that have these needs since not all employees have them. The aligned psychological contract ensures that the employees have the interests of the organization and the customers at heart and work with a combination of their heart and their head rather than just with the use of their hands.

Capacity for learning and change is another organizational outcome that needs to be achieved and sustained. This outcome tends to be a difficult one for organizations to develop effectively and even high-performance organizations find it difficult to sustain. Capacity for continuing change is the key to competitive advantage in an organization (Creelman 2010). Despite it not being easy, the capacity for learning and change enables an organization to adapt from where they are at the time to a better and bigger organization that attracts new customers. It also makes the organization have a diverse workforce which is for the better of the organization because diversity means different ideas, knowledge, and way of doing things. The capacity to adapt allows the organization to grow and serve more people. Diversity in functional proficiency and personal background enables HCHP systems to adapt. When individuals with different backgrounds and from different levels of the organization engage with different elements of the organization, organizational learning and change become possible. The problem is in most organizations, individuals with diverse points of view are never encouraged to share their opinion. The capacity of an organization to uphold a performance-oriented culture and one that supports trust and constructive conflict is important in sustaining high performance.

In my future responsibilities as a manager, I will ensure that I manage employee performance since it is the most important part of an effective leader. According to research, managers who engage ineffective performance management yield extraordinary business outcomes. High performance as a leader will help build the manager-employee relationship which is essential for the organization (Beer 2009). For employees, high-performance management allows them to develop and advance their knowledge and careers and therefore accomplishing their work in the organization as they should. As a leader, it is important to build a high-performance culture since it is necessary to enhance trust and manager-employee relationships and the overall success of the organization. A performance culture is important in an organization since it ensures that there is collaboration, support, and care for the employees. Creating a HCHP as a manager is not easy and as a leader, I will make principled and courageous choices about how the organization should be managed and this will begin from the hiring process. As a leader, I will get a leadership team that will develop distinctive, clear, and focused strategies and adapts to them. Having a clear management philosophy that reflects the inner beliefs and values about life, the role of the organization in the community, and the nature of people at work is important as a leader.

High-performance organizations are characterized by commitment and performance as the essentials for the success of an organization. There are three organizational outcomes that when achieved and sustained by the leaders, ensure that the firm will achieve sustained high performance for a long time. Performance alignment, psychology alignment, and capacity for learning and change should be achieved and sustained in a HCHP organization. As a manager, I will practice high-performance management leadership to create employee commitment, employee-manager trust, and relationship for the overall success of the company.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Beer, M. (2009). High commitment high performance: How to build a resilient organization for

sustained advantage. John Wiley & Sons.

Creelman, D. (2010). Michael Beer: High commitment, high performance. Creelman Research,

3(2).

Lagace, M. (2007). High commitment, high performance management. Retrieved from

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/high-commitment-high-performance-management