HPO Blog

HPO Factor 1 – Management Quality: Coaching

Coaching is defined as ‘the act of training and supporting employees.’ HPO managers coach their employees by being supportive, facilitating them, protecting them from outside interference, and by being available for them when needed. They do not tell people how they should achieve their goals but do give them immediate and concrete feedback on their performance. An activity that managers can undertake to support their employees and that is related to coaching, is mentoring. Whereas coaching focuses on helping employees deal with activities in their current position, mentoring aims at the longer term. Mentoring should help employees develop to the next level in their career and therefore deals less or even not at all with ‘the here and now’ problems and issues. Also, the mentor does not have to be the direct supervisor of the employee as is the case with coaching. Often senior managers function as mentors, especially if the person mentored is a junior manager. Mentoring is therefore concerned with explicitly developing the competence and capacity in an individual in the context of a one-on-one relationship, where the mentor has a depth of expertise and experience in particular areas. Mentoring thus promotes personal growth and development and has an explicit professional development focus on building a career for the employee in a particular sector.

IDEAS TO GET STARTED ON EFFECTIVE COACHING Read More

HPO Factor 1 – Management Quality: Fast decisions

Decision-making is defined as ‘the process of deciding, in which a conclusion or resolution is reached.’ Research has found managers basically use four decisionmaking styles:

• Decisive: a manager values action, speed, efficiency and consistency in decisionmaking and once a decision has been made he or she sticks to it and moves on to the next decision.
• Flexible: a manager values speed and adaptability, getting just enough information to choose a certain action and changing that decision when deviant information becomes available.
• Hierarchical: a manager values getting much information and first extensively analyzing that before making a decision that will be adhered to for a long time.
• Integrative: a manager values options and therefore taking broad decisions which leave many courses of action open. Read More

HPO Factor 1 – Management Quality: Integrity

Integrity is defined as ‘moral uprightness.’ HPO managers show their integrity by having a strong set of ethics and standards according to which they live and practice business. They practice what they preach and walk the talk, thereby displaying behavioral consistency. Employees and colleagues see them because of that as being credible and consistent. In addition, HPO managers ensure that the values of the organization are maintained and valued by everybody, thus creating a morally intelligent organization. Finally, they do not try to win a popularity contest with employees and colleagues but treat everybody in the same way, always.

IDEAS TO GET STARTED TO FOSTER INTEGRITY IN THE ORGANIZATION

Integrity is, like trust, a characteristic that is difficult to improve. It seems you either have it or you don’t. However, you can start creating an environment of integrity by doing the following: Read More

The end of economic growth … the start of social growth?

The business world currently stands at a crossroad: (a) either try to return to the old ways of the nineties and the beginning of this century, or (b) choose a fundamentally new way of doing business. There are strong signs that option (b) has to be chosen: Read More

Do Bonuses Matter?

They Do If Part of a Fair and Equitable Rewards System!

A new blog by André de Waal on TLNT shows that bonuses and reward systems are not distinguishing factors for creating and sustaining an HPO.

The high performance organization needs to have an appropriate reward system (whether or not it includes bonuses) that is considered by employees to be fair and equitable. If such a reward system is not in place, the organization will run into trouble and opposition from employees, rendering the goal of becoming an HPO virtually impossible.

Read this new blog by André de Waal on TLNT!

8 reasons for organizations to excel

The main reason for starting an HPO Diagnosis is management’s strong wish for the organization to excel. In addition, there are quite a few other reasons for starting the diagnosis. Here is a list of some of these reasons as given by the clients of the HPO Center:

1. “We want to know where our organization stands.”
A diagnosis of the current strengths and weaknesses of the organization, in comparison with the peer group and – even more importantly – with the absolute scale of HPO gives insight into where the organization currently stands in the competitive field. Read More

Hygiene Factors That Stops You From Becoming Real High Performance?

In my latest book ‘What Makes A High Performance Organization’ I have written about hygiene factors (for instance about the bonus as hygiene factor). But for many people the difference between these factors and the HPO factors is not always clear. Many folks regularly object to me that the certain things they are doing are really important and have to be done even as my HPO research shows that doing these things doesn´t necessarily make your organization an HPO. The hygiene factors originate from the satisfaction theory of Herzberg (1) which states that performing well on these hygiene factors does not necessarily lead to high performance, while performing badly will lead to demotivation and dissatisfaction. Therefore Herzberg also referred to hygiene factors as demotivators or dissatisfiers. Read More

Will Toyota become an HPO again?

By André de Waal published on www.indusbusinessjournal.com

On August 28th, 2009 an accident happened with a Toyota — an accident that triggered a recall of more than 10 million vehicles in 2009 and 2010 and a loss of more than $4 billion for fiscal year 2009.

In San Diego, the gas pedal of a Lexus became stuck under the floor mat, causing the car to run out of control and the road, killing all of its occupants. However, the accident did not set off a whole series of improvements at Toyota, as it once would have done in the manner that gained the company a reputation for its world-class processes. But Toyota was no longer the robust company of the earlier days, the company that had risen from the brink of bankruptcy in the 1950s and had achieved a stretch of 50 consecutive years of profitability — a record unheard of in manufacturing industries — to become the biggest car manufacturer in the world. A company known for its excellence in manufacturing processes and its continuous improvement culture, collectively known as “The Toyota Way.” Toyota was in 2010 rapidly losing its reputation as high performance organization and everyone wondered: what happened? Read More