Overview of HR Strategy and Development/Evolution of High Performance Organizations

Prepared by Daniel F. Duran HRD 328 Spring 2008

The High Performance Organization

Questions to Ponder:

What is the role of HR in building and sustaining a HPO? What is the high performance context of organizational behavior? What is a high performance organization?

Achieving extraordinary results from ordinary people A HPO is foremost a learning organization

What are the management challenges of domestic and

international high performance organizations? How do high performance organizations operate?

The HPO as a Learning Organization

Learning faster than your competitors

What personal characteristics facilitate a learning advantage?

The HPO is defined as a Learning Organization

Name a HPO that you believe is a LO Name a F 100 that has ceased to be a LO

What is a high performance organization?

High performance organizations (HPOs).

HPOs intentionally designed to:
Bring out the best in people via a strategically focused HR

organization
Hire right, continuously train, and use the talent Disasters, ashes, and flight (ATT and SCE examples)

Produce organizational capability that delivers sustainable

organizational results. HPOs place people first.

Two Definitions of HPOs

From The Fifth Discipline, 1990: organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning how to learn together. From David Garvins Learning in Action, 2000: A learning organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, interpreting, transferring, and retaining knowledge, and at purposely modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

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.

What is a high performance organization?

Emphasis on intellectual capital.

Intellectual capital is the foundation for HPOs
To utilize intellectual capital, HPOs often organize workflow around key business processes and use work teams within these processes

What is a high performance organization?

Key components utilized in HPOs.

Employee involvement. Systems Thinking Self-directing work teams. Integrated production technologies. Organizational learning. Focus on Total Quality Management and Continuous

Improvement.

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.

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. Modular/Variable Manufacturing and Customer Support

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
Google model: Eat, play, breathe as one Remove desire to leave premises to get other work done

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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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Traditional Vs. HPO/TQM Organizational Structure

Traditional Organizational Structure Top Management Middle Management Lower Level Management and Front Line Supervisors Employees Support Flow TQM/HPO View Employees

Lower Level Management and Front Line Supervisors Middle Management Top Management

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HPO Driven by TQM: Borrowing from Walter Demings 14 Points

1. Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and services. 2. Adopt the new philosophy. We can no longer live with commonly accepted levels of delays, mistakes, defective workmanship. 3. Cease dependence on mass inspection. Require, instead, statistical evidence that quality is built in. 4 . End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag. 5. Find problems. It is managements job to work continually on the system. 6. Institute modern methods of training on the job. 7. Institute modern methods of supervision of production workers. The responsibility of foremen must be changed from numbers to quality. 8. Drive out fear so that everyone may work effectively for the 9. Break down barriers between departments. 10. Eliminate numerical goals, posters and slogans for the workforce asking for new levels of productivity without providing methods. 11. Eliminate work standards that prescribe numerical quotas. 12. Remove barriers that stand between the hourly worker and his right to pride of workmanship 13. Institute a vigorous programme of education and retraining. 14. Create a structure in top management that will push everyday on the above 13 points..

company

9.

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The Five Deadly Sins to Developing a Genuine HPO

Lack of constancy Concentration on short term profits Over reliance on performance appraisals Job-hopping Over emphasis on visible figures

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How do high performance organizations operate?

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. Begin with Simple Values
1. Work should be fun 2. Work is important but dont kill it by being too serious 3. People are importantevery person can make a

difference

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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.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

Southwest Airlines as an HPO.
HPO component: integrated production

technologies.
Integrated use of information technology in distribution,

order entry, crew pairings, dispatching of flights, revenue management, schedule planning, and parts replacement.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

Southwest Airlines as an HPO.
HPO component: total quality management.
Southwest Spirit focusing on a strong work ethic, a

strong desire for quality work, going beyond the call of duty, helping others, and doing the right thing.
TQM qualities are reinforced by empowerment, learning,

and communications devices.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

Southwest Airlines as an HPO. Other HPO considerations: vision/direction setting package.
The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the

highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit. Strategic elements in direction setting. Core values.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

Southwest Airlines as an HPO. Other HPO considerations: compensation.
Flight attendants paid by the trip. Incentives for employee performance. Pilots salaries are comparable to other airlines but they

fly 40% more hours. Profit sharing and pension plans. Usual airline fringe benefits.

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How do high performance organizations operate?

Southwest Airlines as an HPO.
Other HPO considerations: outcomes. Highly satisfied employees. Strong commitment to the company. Low turnover. Strong performance on various productivity measures. Active in contributing to the communities in which it operates. Your Assignment for Next Week: Select and deconstruct a HPO that you believe can serve as a model for your current firm or one that you want to work with or can learn from
Maximum length 5 PowerPoints Include Values, Culture, Strategy, Metrics, Compensation/Rewards

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and HR practices