High performance organizations free essay sample

A High Performance Organization is an organization that achieves results that are better than those of its peer group over a longer period of time, by being able to adapt well to changes and react on these quickly, by managing for the long term, by setting up an integrated and aligned management structure , by continuously improving its core capabilities, and by truly treating the employees as its main asset. We can also define High Performance Organization as the combination of self-managing work teams, employee involvement, total quality management, flexible production practices, and a learning orientation. The following summarizes all the definitions: (1) Creating flexible, high-performing, learning organizations is the secret to gaining competitive advantage in a world that won’t stand still. (2) Self-managed teams and decentralization of decision making as the basic principles of organizational design. (3) Employee involvement, participative management, democratic management, and total quality management. (4) Extraordinary capable people, working in teams, equipped with proper technology, focused on satisfying the customer and improving work processes. In today’s age of extreme competition and increasing demands, managers of modern organizations are expected to excel. As it is the task of every manager to realize the goals of the organization by achieving outstanding performance in the organizational unit he or she is responsible for, managers are under great pressure to deal effectively with trends and developments. The management of organizations is primarily interested in those factors that are important for achieving consistently good results. Characteristics with regard to the organizational design, structure, processes, technology, leadership, people, and culture, and the external environment which seem to influence the ability of organizations to achieve high performance ,can guide managers as to which actions they need to take to lead their organizations to superior results. By identifying the characteristics of HPOs, organizations hope to be able to improve themselves in a focus way so they can start achieving sustainable performance. The Characteristics are: 1. ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN A HPO stimulates cross-functional and cross-organizational collaboration by making teamwork and collaboration top priorities of management. A HPO simplifies and flattens the organization by reducing boundaries and barriers between and around units, thus getting rid of bureaucracy and organizational complexity. 2. STRATEGY A HPO balances long-term focus and short term focus in order to safeguard the long-term continuity of the business and its contribution to the world. A HPO sets clear, ambitious, measurable and achievable goals which raise levels of aspiration and thereby create a sense of stretch by new innovations , processes and services thus constantly creating new sources of competitive advantage by rapidly develop new products and services to respond to market changes. 3. QUALITY OF MANAGEMENT A HPO maintains trust relationships with people on all organizational levels by valuing employees’ loyalty, treating smart people smart, showing people respect, creating and maintaining individual relationships with employees, encouraging belief and trust in others, and treating people fairly. Managers of excellent organizations are honest, decisive, action-oriented, performance-oriented, effective, self-confident and have a strong leadership style. 4. CULTURE A HPO establishes clear ,strong and meaningful core values and makes sure they are widely shared within the company. Only make commitments that are aligned with the core values as it is essential to achieve sustainable high performance. Celebrate successes daily. 5. INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR ROLES A HPO creates a learning organization by continuously investing in training and upgrading of skills, identifying and accessing new competencies. The more training given to employees, the more committed they will be to the organization. Effective training program can lead to greater employee commitment and less employee turnover and hence more stable workforce. 6. LEADERSHIP Leaders of a HPO develop an effective, focused and strong management style by communicating the values and by making sure the strategy has been received and embraced by organizational members. Employees of HPO believe their senior leadership team goes out of their way to acknowledge and thank people for their contribution. 7. EXTERNAL ORIENTATION By External orientation we mean the relation with the clients , stakeholders and customers. A HPO should have a level of commitment with their customers, if they did not, they would not survive. They understand their customer’s needs and deliver services that meet those needs, they build loyalty and eventually build advocacy. Those customers then become vocal supporters which breed new customers and further success. EXAMPLES OF HIGH PERFORMANCE ORGANISATIONS Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts, explained that the company believes its people to be its strength and has a top-down approach to training. The strategy is that all operations should be defined, the work very clearly distributed and the team member’s job should be made simple and easily visible. MindTree Consulting: There are no ready-made recipes for attracting and retaining talent. MindTree learnt in the six years of its existence in the knowledge industry was that they were in a people’s business and hence they had to listen to people and understand their aspirations. MindTree’s employees are its brand ambassadors, with 50% of the organisation’s recruitment coming through employee referrals. SASKEN: Sasken decided that the three most important aspects of the organization were competence, commitment and character. The organization ensured competence by hiring the best talent. To build affective commitment, it worked on its purpose of creating brand India and unleashing Indian creativity by harnessing technology potential and demonstrating its concern. The character of the company, which was defined as consistency of behavior across time, was put to the test during the downturn when all employees took a 20% cut in their salaries, demonstrating an equal sense of ownership. IBM Global Services India : Elaborated on the trends emerging in the global market. Believes in giving attention to customer focus, ‘value-adding’ growth, innovation, the key ‘people’ factor, and building scale, branding and communication. CONCLUSION People are our most important asset and the human resource management (HRM) is an essential function in organizations that affects the quality of organizational performance (OP). Most of the high performance companies such as Apple, Toyota, General Electric (GE), IBM and Google have proved that management systems that encourage commitment and competence of people achieve greater productivity. The HPO study shows that there is a direct relation between the HPO factors and competitive performance. Organizations which pay more attention to HPO factors and score high on these consistently achieve better results than their peers, in every industry and sector . The difference between HPOs and non-HPOs is particularly significant in the case of HPO factor Quality of management: HPOs pay considerably more attention to the designated aspects of long-term commitment than non-HPO organizations, and are therefore able to improve their performance significantly. All HPO factors are interrelated. It should be kept in mind that, because organizations and environments are continually evolving, improvement in ideas and practices need to be adapted to the times. HPO managers are flexible and creative enough to not let such a downfall happen so that they can make and keep their organization world-class. Challenges that A HPO can face could be: Need to be aware that outputs include not only the product or service provided, but also impact on quality of life of organizational members, impact on society through activities. Smooth integration of all components needed might not be easy because of the following: Resistance from employees (e. g. , prefer individual work) Resistance from managers (fear loss of traditional role; uncomfortable with move to being facilitators and coaches) Training development of middle managers, whose roles are drastically changing and who may resist.