Chapter 2 The High Performance Organization

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Chapter 2The High Performance Organization

• Dr. Raj Singh

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Chapter 2The High Performance Organization

• Topics
• What is the high performance context of
  organizational behavior?
• What is a high performance organization?
• What are the management challenges of high
  performance organizations?
• How do high performance organizations operate?

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and changing customer expectations
• Total Quality Management (TQM).
• Meeting customer needs.
• Doing tasks right the first time.
• Continuous improvement.
• Is this necessary?
• If so, can it be done better?

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and changing customer expectations cont.
• Upside-down pyramid view of organizations.
• Customers and clients at the top of organization.
• Workers directly affect customers and clients.
• Team leaders and middle managers directly support
  the workers.
• Top managers clarify the mission and objectives,
  set strategies, and make adequate resources
  available.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and the changing workforce.
• Increasing workforce diversity in
• United States.
• Canada.
• European Union.
• Generation X (or Gold-Collar workers).
• Poor educational preparation of some high school
  graduates.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• Generation X workers.
• Desire empowerment.
• These desires are strongest for knowledge
  workers.
• Have a high level of skills and abilities for
  functioning well in challenging jobs and work
  settings.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• Ill-prepared high school graduates.
• Enter the workforce with significant skill
  deficiencies.
• Need for remedial training.
• High cost to organizations.
• Individuals can suffer long-term career
  disadvantages.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and changing organizations.
• Changes in the way people work.
• Stresses of downsizing and restructuring.
• Impact of information technology.
• New meanings in employer-employee relationships.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and changing organizations cont.
• Process reengineering.
• Rethinks and radically redesigns business
  processes to stimulate innovation and change and
  improve performance.
• Electronic commerce.
• Transaction of business through the Internet.
• E-corporations.

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What is the high performance context of
organizational behavior?

• OB and changing organizations cont.
• Free agent economy.
• Shamrock organizations.
• Relatively small core group of permanent,
  full-time employees with critical skills.
• Outside operators contracting to core group to
  perform essential daily activities.
• Part-timers hired by core group on an as-needed
  basis.

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What is a high performance organization?

• High performance organizations (HPOs).
• HPOs intentionally designed to
• Bring out the best in people.
• Produce organizational capability that delivers
  sustainable organizational results.
• HPOs place people first.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Emphasis on intellectual capital.
• Intellectual capital is the foundation for HPOs.
• To utilize intellectual capital, HPOs often
  organize work-flow around key business processes
  and use work teams within these processes.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Key components utilized in HPOs.
• Employee involvement.
• Self-directing work teams.
• Integrated production technologies.
• Organizational learning.
• Total quality management.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Employee involvement.
• The amount of decision making delegated to
  workers at all levels.
• Employment involvement can be visualized on a
  continuum.
• No involvement or parallel involvement.
• Moderate involvement or participative management.
• High involvement or employee empowerment.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Self-directing work teams.
• Empowered to make decisions about planning,
  doing, and evaluating their work.
• Sometimes called self-managing or self-leading
  work teams.
• Important in HPOs due to
• Need to tap employees expertise and knowledge.
• Need for employees to manage themselves.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Integrated production technologies.
• Focus on providing flexibility in manufacturing
  and services and involves job design and
  information technology.
• Key components
• Just-in-time systems.
• Use of computers.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Organizational learning.
• A way for organizations to adapt to their
  settings and to gather information to anticipate
  future changes.
• HPOs are designed for organizational learning.

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What is a high performance organization?

• Total quality management (TQM).
• A total commitment to
• High-quality results.
• Continuous improvement.
• Meeting customer needs.
• TQM is a a tightly integrated part of HPOs.
• Encourages all workers to do their own quality
  planning and checking.

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What are the management challenges of high
performance organizations?

• Challenges of environmental linkages.
• HPOs are open systems influenced by a rapidly
  moving external environment.
• Open systems components.
• Inputs worksite problems and opportunities, and
  vision, mission, and strategy.
• Transformation processes five HPO components.
• Outputs individual, group, and organizational
  effectiveness, and contributions.

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What are the management challenges of high
performance organizations?

• Challenges of internal integration.
• Challenge of integrating five HPO components.
• Top-down and bottom-up decision making in HPOs.
• HPO islands.

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What are the management challenges of high
performance organizations?

• Challenges for middle manager roles.
• Helping implement HPO components.
• HPO changes may alter middle managers jobs.
• Dealing with employee resistance to self-managing
  teams.
• Resolving tensions among HPO components.

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What are the management challenges of high
performance organizations?

• Challenges for high level leadership.
• Deciding how far to go in becoming a HPO.
• Internationalizing United States business
  practices.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

• Southwest Airlines as an HPO.
• HPO component employee involvement.
• Flat and lean hierarchy.
• Heavy team emphasis throughout organization.
• Paper work minimized.
• Rapid decision making emphasized.
• People were empowered to do whatever it takes
  to get the job done.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

• Southwest Airlines as an HPO.
• HPO component self-directing work teams.
• Longer term service teams.
• Ad hoc teams for given projects or duties.
• Culture promotes cooperative activities.