Is your business a high performance organization? High performance businesses use a different approach than traditional businesses with differences that include:
- Business structure – Traditional businesses tend to have a centralized, bureaucratic structure while high performance businesses feature decentralized, self-regulating teams
- Focus – Traditional businesses tend to be internally focused while high performance businesses focus on customers
- Management – Traditional businesses rely on management to plan and coordinate activities while high performance businesses use work teams. Traditional organizations also tend to be more rigid with rules and policies whereas high performance businesses tend to have fewer rules
- Employees – Traditional businesses tend to view employees as tools whereas high performance businesses view employees as partners
- Departments – Traditional businesses tend to be broken down into functional units such as accounting and manufacturing whereas high performance businesses lean toward product or process related departments
In fact, high performance organizations tend to have less hierarchical organizational structures than traditional organizations and adopt work practices that emphasize teamwork and empowerment. The concept of linking human resource management to improved organizational performance has spawned the high performance work organization movement. By empowering employees and providing an environment where teams can flourish, creativity, innovation, and performance are often the result.
Why adopt a high performance workplace strategy? Research shows that high performance organizations consistently outperform their peers and are able to sustain their superiority over time despite changes, disruptions, and cycles.
As you look at the differences between high performance and traditional organizations, you’ll notice that high performance organizations have a different mindset. They think differently. Not only that, high performance organizations understand their market focus and capabilities leading to better decisions and business practices.
Simply saying, “Okay, let’s be a high performance organization” isn’t enough. Change doesn’t happen by will power alone. The first step involves recognizing the benefits of high performance organizations. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by studying other organizations that use a high performance approach.
FrancordSoft’s high performance business research conducts case studies, looking at high performance organizations and examining: organizational structure, defining characteristics, and core business practices. FrancordSoft looks at the characteristics that make these organizations successful. After identifying and analyzing high performing businesses in your industry, the next step is emulating the best performers.
Partnering with change agents within organizations, FrancordSoft helps organizations to:
- Foster organizational change and improvement
- Develop and foster an organizational culture
- Develop leadership and management
- Re-engineer processes
- Build teams
- Develop team skills (problem solving, conflict resolution, mentoring, facilitation, etc.,)
Change doesn’t come easy, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Start by viewing FrancordSoft’s high performance business research and case studies in your industry and learn more about how your peers have moved from the traditional model to a high performance model.