Building a Resilient High-Performing Organisation

As a Leader; a CEO, Store Manager, HR Business Partner, Chairman, Scrum Team Lead -you’re now starting to regroup and rebuild. I’m seeing an appetite to re-evaluate how we manage, lead and build in the right way. 

As many have commented, we’re asking ourselves how to manage risk going forward, how to build resiliency, and how we can drive growth and engage our employees in the new world/ways of working. 

I'd to share a framework I’ve built and used over the years to build high-performing organisations that balance what they do (Performance Management) and how they manage (Engagement). Hopefully you will find it useful. (I'd love to hear your feedback)

I’ll explain how this works at an individual level, how it scales across the organisation, give examples of key interventions/initiatives to reinforce both, and finally highlight 5 Key Takeaways.

Interestingly, there is no agreed definition of an organisation - different writers emphasise different aspects. Most definitions embrace the idea that organisations are:

• groups of people
• acting together
• in pursuit of common goals or objectives

Those groups of people are individuals, carrying out their daily habits, vectors going in different directions, with their own motivations and complicated lives. If they’re lucky, they get an Onboarding week and a weekly/monthly catchup with a Line Manager. Then, hopefully, magically, those individual objectives serendipitously add up to an overarching Purpose/Destination.

 Our job building a High-Performing Organisation is to bring organisational order to the chaos of that human potential. To create ‘systems’, processes and ways of working that unlock all of that latent potential. 

That starts at the Individual level….. all successful personal transformation comes from getting 3 things right:

We all know that creating a compelling Purpose, a Why, a Destination that embodies happiness/pleasure or alleviates pain – is the first step to long-lasting change. 

Whether it’s running a marathon, being a better Father, changing career or learning a new language - successful change is all about the daily habits that get you closer to that Purpose/Destination.

To know if we’re progressing, we then need as-Instant-as-possible feedback. To know if our habits are resulting in the desired outcomes. We may need to change the magnitude of the habit or pivot to a new one.

Shawn Achor did a great piece of research on HABITS - the 5 daily habits that lead to Happiness. I really recommend this, a great framework to start with (if that’s your goal) that you then test & learn from to iterate to what works for you. 

You can’t go wrong with any personal transformation if you stick to those 3 pillars of Purpose, Habits and Instant Feedback.

I’ll come back to the topic of personal transformational at a later date and share some of the tools I use. But today, the topic is organisational transformation.

The 2 biggest levers at an Organisational (and indeed societal level) are Performance Management and Engagement. 

As the organisation grows and becomes more complex (figure below) so does the imperative to consciously design and implement the right Performance and Engagement interventions.

‘Performance Drivers’ are WHAT we DO - what we focus on as we drive towards value. ‘Engagement Drivers’ are HOW we get there - and how we FEEL. Delivered together, and with scale, we get a network effort across the organisation and becomes more than the sum of the parts.

As below, it all starts with a Transformation Plan that combines both; a clear performance-focussed destination - typically with a $/Rev/EBITDA value AND a compelling meaningful Purpose. 

Everything else (some examples from my portfolio of levers in the tables below) slots in behind that. 

I’ve seen this model of Performance & Engagement work well across MNC/Listed, VC-backed and PE-back organisations. 

In a small start-up, a sports team, or high-performing team in a bigger org - it’s a simple extension of Purpose & Habits & Feedback. Think of the Dave Brailsford, Peter Thiel, Clive Woodward, Elon Musk, Arsene Wenger and now Jurgen Klopp School of Mgt; 

Hire a group of people that like spending time together, work tirelessly on the daily habits/100 little things, and be obsessed about measuring and pivoting. 

As the organisation grows it becomes more about the ‘Line Management’ of the group, and introducing systems. As the organisation grows further we need the plethora of interventions above to get everyone on the same page, engaged, and operating at full capacity, counteracting the politics, and distractions of organisational silos/competing agendas. Think about making all of the individual best-practices fully automated across your organisation.

In the current climate I’m seeing an increasingly number of CEOs, Boards and Stakeholders take a real interest in looking at how to set this up properly. There’s an increasing number of Chief Transformation Officer roles and a number of CHROs stepping up to play a more proactive role in leading this. 

Most importantly there’s an increasing desire to balance how we rebuild, to drive growth and performance but to do it in the right way, engaging our employees and really unlocking all of that human potential.

I’d love to hear from you, please comment with your thoughts & experience - how you have been, and will, approach this. Drop me a mail if you have any questions or would like to discuss further.

I'll leave you with 5 Key Takeaways from this article to build a High-Performing Organisation in the right way;

1.     Build a Leadership Coalition of 30/40 Impact Players across the organisation that REALLY LIKE EACH OTHER. 

'never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has’ – Margaret Mead

2.     Map out the transformation journey. A compelling meaningful destination, and identify the key 20/30 initiatives to close the gap. Hire T-shaped Impact Players that are hungry to deliver the day job AND those initiatives.

3.     To systemise performance and go from individual contribution, really unlocking the Enterprise Value in Team Working and across your Organisation – think like a Growth-hacking Guerrilla Marketeer. When you find a habit, or a process that gets the best results find a way to AUTOMATE it, to get it working across your org, at scale and at PACE.     

‘Civilisation advance by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them’ – Alfred Whitehead.

4.     Pilot, test, learn. Think like an Agile Engineer. But be prepared to pivot constantly and Bravely. Execute tough decisions quickly and deeply. Measure, listen to feedback, triangulate and course correct equally quickly. 

“Strong convictions…loosely held’ – Peter Thiel.

5.     Balance Art & Science, Engagement and Performance, Qual and Quant. Continually learn and seek ‘wisdom’ (personally and across the org), build a big picture when assessing and making decisions. Look at the data/KPIs but equally understand the ‘grand narrative’/history behind the issue. Take the time to talk to individuals – ask them to tell you their story, Balance Being Brave & Authentically Caring…