The Key Elements in Building a High-Performing Company - Essay Example

Number: Lecturer: To be a high-performance company Introduction For a company to be seen and rated as a high-performance, it hasto have in its day to day activities, put in place certain tenets that it holds dear with one aim; the overall success of the company. The demand for goods and services are ever increasing as population rises. On the other hand innovation and invention is leading to a production of better good and services leading to competition among peers in the market. Challenges facing companies are many ranging from an economic slowdown to increased competition, risk management, customer retention, operating costs and many more. Balancing all the challenges by striving to reduce the impact in has on the company can mean success to a company. It is noteworthy to say that there is no best way to manage a company to achieve high performance. It depends on unique circumstances around the company and the industry it is operating on. A mining industry company cannot be compared with say a company in financial services like an insurance company. A telecom service provider cannot be compared with an agricultural industry firm. On the other hand, to be a high performance does not mean a company is operating in isolation. The company has to benchmark with its peers in the industry, whether locally or internationally. An international benchmarking focus is far much better as it gives a better outlook that would otherwise be not achievable had it been a narrow focus on local competitors only. A high performance has to have the right management team that strives to create a high-performance environment and culture. They do this by setting clear goals, expectations, define clearly employee roles, create a trusting environment, and encourage employee growth and development. They continuously raise the bar by promoting higher performance from themselves and all teams in the company. Achieving sustainable growth, though, requires commitment from the entire company in order to build a culture. It should be able to adapt to ongoing changes, internally or from outside, in a competitive environment. It is important for the company to embrace change especially from an outside force, in order to avoid the likelihood of falling through in stiff competition the company should be able to yearn for change before it becomes compulsory. It should be able to identify and act on the opportunities that come along with change as they present themselves or become apparent. The key elements in building a high-performing company To achieve high-performance in a company, it does not depend on a simple factor, one thing, or as a result of one or two things. There must be a context of many inter-related things in which this company has to operate within in order to greatly impact better results. The context that the company operates includes a culture of that particular company. Culture in this context means how things are done, what works and what does not, how decisions are made, what behaviors are expected and how these behaviors are rewarded. To attain high-performance, the entire company has to ask the question of what to be done and how to be done. With a clear definition of this issue will lead to a clear definition of where to go in a particular time frame. As has been alluded, specifics of a high-performance culture are unique to the company as they are based what works best. This is so as long as it will get the company to where the wants to go within the company-defined parameters. There is no formula that fits into the circumstance that each company finds itself in. Some of the strategies that work for a company to enable it achieve high performance include the following; i) Have a strong vision The leadership of a company should identify and communicate a clear vision. The leader should be able to understand the basic elements of visioning and how this vision is to be communicated clearly. The vision should be created in a way that is clear and effective as it is able to deliver many benefits to the business. It helps help define the values of the company and its employees and guide behavior for and by all. It will lead to improving productivity and efficiency as employees buy-in and create a sense of shared vision enabling the organization to realize benefits associated with strong sense of vision. A majority of employees want to be part of a compelling future as they identify with the importance of work and what excellence looks like. The company targets are broken down to have a meaning to each and every employee. Each employee should be able to articulate on how exactly his efforts feed into the broader company strategy. ii) Internal communication Internal communication needs to be on the top agenda in a coordinated way. Individuals and departments need to communicate and collaborate. Leaders should understand their roles in the communication process, both within the organization and outside audiences like the customers. They should be able to be a source of prompt, timely and accurate information to curtail grapevine which can have negative effects on the company. They should be able to schedule regular and an open forum where there can be one to one conversation to disseminate and individualize important message. They should be able to follow up as and when needed to ensure that employees understand and absorb those messages and are, therefore, acting appropriately. This creates trust among people and able to pull together towards the success of the organization. iii) Customer-centered strategy The test for this approach is the level where leaders have successfully found a connection between the company’s mission, the brand, and people and purpose and the customers and the community it which it operates. They should be able to ensure that employees understand their roles both individually and collectively in meeting the customer needs and expectations. Each employee should have a true sales culture acting as brand ambassadors hence the entire organization becomes a customer success. All the employees should be engaged in this exercise every day. All the front-line employees should be able to listen actively and respond to customers in the most appropriate way. This, in fact, will make the employees feel a sense of authority and empowerment hence, anchoring in their actions, the mission, vision and customer service values. Sharing stories of how front-line employees have demonstrated values necessary in customer service will bring to life and make them part of the corporate culture. iv) Attracting, training, and retaining the right talent The company needs to put a certain culture as envisioned by its owners or management leaders. This set of culture should then inform the type of people to hire into the company to carry forward the company’s mission and vision. These employees should be able to share this vision and not merely fill a vacant space, hence should be able to the most perfect individual who can fit. It can be hard hiring the right person, but it is worth the process to do it. These employees should be trained through investment in the right set of skills that will be able to make the employee perform excellently. The company should be able to invest in employee success before the real success and continuous improvement and growth. The company should be able to view employee talent as a corporate asset and therefore support in all the levels. It ensures that high-potential employees have a greater chance of internal mobility and opportunity. When talent is maximized, the employees who would have otherwise held back and probably moved to other organization are held back for the long-term engagement. Payment should be commensurate with their efforts and talent. Customized training and development plans should be able to go hand in hand with objectives and direction and hence provide employees with a clear career pathway. v) Rewarding excellent performance All milestones achieved and probably beaten should be celebrated. People’s hard work should be celebrated in order to boost morale and provide the push to keep the momentum. In fact, if possible implement pay-for-performance in some parts of the organizations where vendors are involved. The company should show its employees that they have their best interests in the corporate mind. A performance management process that is effective has a huge impact on sustainable growth in companies. A merit-based culture can be implemented to differentiate between high and low performance. When standards and expectations are clearly defined for individuals, team, department, and the entire organization, achieving such milestones is simpler. The reward system should be transparent and acceptable across the board. It brings an increased level of equity and inclusivity to all and hence impact and shape the organization’s culture positively. Shared goals and objectives should be articulated properly alongside the reward system. vi) Empowering through delegation and authority Alongside implementing the best reward system as discussed above, the company should be able to empower its employees and give them some authority to exercise. It strengthens and improves the level trust, responsibility, and accountability among employees. When the level of trust and accountability are improved, employees are likely to recognize and respond appropriately to changing information from the marketplace. In their response, they will be able to develop innovative ideas to meet the changing market demands and, therefore, stay ahead of the competition. The connection with the customers will be improved hence creating better brand relationship and hence become excellent brand ambassadors. Performance can also be improved by sharing results in a transparent manner at the end of a financial year. It increases the employees’ sense of ownership through such openness. They should be able to read and internalize such numbers in a simple and clear manner by training them. They will be able to have the right insight and relate these numbers to their own jobs at individual, departmental or organizational level to know how each one impacts the numbers. Also, focus on additional metrics that are important besides financial numbers. The employees who are not in the accounting department will understand and better relate to results and hence feel more included in the process of decision-making. Conclusion High-performance in an organization can be achieved through the right culture that inculcates discipline and responsibility to each and every employee. Organization, that yearns to be rated as highly performing, cannot take its culture for granted. They should be able to plan, monitor, and manage it so that it remains aligned with the overall corporate mission and vision. Factors discussed above are the all, but they are sufficient for a company to consider and implement strategically to achieve high performance. There is no copy and paste procedure of implementation but rather all the factors should be kept alive throughout the implementation process. All for an integral part of what will be deemed as success culture in a high-performing company. For those companies already implementing these factors have to seek ways of improving them as to attain the highest possible success level. There is always a room for improvement, and if a company does not see the need, then it is bound to fail one day due to the competition. A company should be able to find ways where change can be inbuilt into the company systems and can be implemented outwards to avoid be caught unawares. It happens when other companies embrace change and catching up would be a daunting task that will be expensive or cause outright collapse of the the company. Local and international business operating environments are competitive and are rapidly changing due advancement in technology and improvement in business processes. In fact, it can impact positively, the company if can be managed and implemented actively or at the earliest opportunity. Read More