How to have a High Performing Business (2005)

How to have a high performing business, you lead people, not manage them, you’ll then have a higher performing business.

This article was originally written in May 2005. If you see all the issues that are written now by this topic, everyone is still preaching about “How to have a High Performing Business.”

The solutions are there… find a few and start implementing them. I’m putting together an Advisory Group, which will help organizations to grow and be a high performing organization.

Dr. Norton and Dr. Kaplan have found the key to having it all in The Balanced Scorecard by leading people and managing organizations better you will have a higher performing business. (the article has been archived 2020)

By using a definite set of measures for employees well being and employee ability to be competent in their positions will drive the strategic execution. It is a cause and effect in how human capital and other intangible assets are linked together to create a process, customer and financial results.

To create a healthy strategy a “Harvard Business Review by Dr. Norton and Dr. Kaplan convey the value of a strategy map, which they have called *The Balanced Scorecard.”

Their recommendations are:

1. A well being index for the quality of Work, Life and Leadership.
2. When the index improves they can expect improvement in the Relationship outcomes such as employee turnover, absenteeism, grievances and illness rates as well as improvements in customer results.
3. We can expect when our relationships improve so can our businesses can improve dramatically.
4. When relationships improve, the financial results will follow.
5. Opportunity costs are also reduced, thus more business. “This is where the undiscovered value of a healthy organization lies.”

The Balanced Scorecard is not a static tool, but an evolving process. Just like peeling an onion, as leaders address the pressing issues, other issues will surface. With a new understanding of the drivers of health we can ensure that our employees perform at higher levels.

“Human life will never be understood unless its highest aspirations are taken into account. Growth, self-actualization, the striving toward health, the quest for identity and autonomy, the yearning for excellence…must now be accepted beyond question as a widespread and perhaps universal human tendency.“

–Abraham Maslow from Motivation and Personality

What is a High Performing Business?

How can Kindness be a Strategy and work with The Balance Scorecard? Kindness is the competitive advantage that your people create. Your most profound challenge is to develop kindness strategies for employee and customer well-being.

• Who will exercise the leadership to perform on this information?
• Who will hold managers and supervisors accountable for healthier relationships, for productivity and profits?
• The government is held accountable by the general public through the voting process. Investors and shareholders hold accountable the company for profits.
• When are we going to hold organizations accountable?

Upward and forward moving businesses are now aligning their initiatives to be competitive by developing kinder initiatives such as Federal Express has build accountability for employee satisfaction on employee survey findings. The Bank of Montreal is moving in a similar direction to hold leaders accountable for employee results. Sears Roebuck has already made leaps and bounds of progress in hosting an array of learning initiatives. When you give a survey, you need to follow it up with action otherwise you will lose the trust of your employees and customers.

To adopt this new way of thinking early adopters, leaders and gutsy organizations will create spectacular improvements in your business’s health and well-being.  I wonder how we will treat the failures of managers and leaders of companies? What will the legal implications be? Who will be called upon for their failures? What will the corporate lawyers will do with this? If we don’t start creating healthier organizations we will have a shortage of employees and even perhaps sabotage within companies.

This is an adaption from the original article I wrote in 2005. You can read the original at E-zine Articles.

The more self-aware you are and your staff are the better growth you’ll experience personally and via productivity and profits. Read more about Kindness in Business

After reading this article, which has been read by more than 10,000 people.. I wonder how many companies are doing anything about this issue?

Just like peeling an onion, as leaders address the pressing issues, other issues will surface. With a new understanding of the drivers of health we can ensure that our employees perform at higher levels.