According to the Corporate Leadership Council's (CLC) study on High Performance, the conventional approaches to managing/leading performance have delivered gains of about 1% per annum since 2002.  Yet on average, Executives and Managers estimate they will need to lift employee performance by a whopping 20% to meet their organisation's goals over the next few years!

By analysing what the best performing organisations are achieving, they say this is possible. And the key to unlocking this 'Breakthrough' performance?  Increase the 'Network Performance' of employees.

Network Performance is defined as...
"employees effectiveness at improving others performance and using others contributions to improve his or her own performance".

At this point you might note that this is quite a different approach to traditional organisational development programmes which have typically focused on 'Individual Task Performance' i.e. an employee's effectiveness at achieving his/her own tasks and assignments.

Network Performance is essentially about the ability of everyone to freely and willingly transfer knowledge to the benefit of everyone. It includes things like:

• Effectively transferring great ideas from other parts of the organisation into their own work
• Improving procedures and processes based on ideas from others
• Effectively transferring skills and knowledge to co-workers
• Providing useful new ideas for products, services and process improvements to others
• Improving working methods, techniques or tools for others

The ability to achieve any of these comes down to whether your organisations culture actively facilitates them, vs working against them. For example, cultures which ignore or tolerate silos would struggle to get any type of true network performance. And business silos remain all too common today - possibly the one thing that almost all our clients say is an issue for them.

On a related note, this insightful article by Soren Gorhamer 5 New Paradigms for a Socially Engaged Company explores how "companies are realising that it is not enough to get people to show up to work; the real challenge is creating cultures that enhance creativity and innovation" and that's all about getting them working together better.

The article reinforces a number of really important points about why the concept of ‘Network performance’ is so important.

• build a culture that reflects the experience you want your customers to have so that experience comes naturally. For example, it is likely that staff will struggle to deliver great service to customers if they aren't getting it from their own colleagues! Think of the great quote by Sam Walton the founder of Walmart..."It only takes 1-2 weeks for employees to start treating customers the same way the employer is treating the employee"
• look to the wider organisation for the answers and ideas you need. Leaders don't have all the answers but the wider organisation and its customers almost certainly do, so provide the channels that allow that wisdom to be exposed and shared. Internal online community platforms like OBP’s ON2net are designed to be just that for those wanting to share what they know and learn from others
• ensure everyone in the business understands and is engaged around the 'purpose' of the business. It may sound cheesy but unless people really believe in what their organisation is there for, and understand the value it adds to its customers, they won't understand their particular role in achieving it, and you won't get the best out of them. This point was reinforced to us in a video taken at one of our engagement events where a staff member has just realised that he was 'not just an IT person' but had a much more important and significant role in helping to look after the financial welfare of their six million customers. I'm sure this guy feels much more connected to the business now and will look for more ways to deliver the best service to customers
  

Soren finishes his article with this powerful statement...

"The old paradigm was individualistic and focused on thriving to be personally brilliant; the new one is much more social, and it involves creating cultures that enhance innovation in all those present".

Brilliantly said. It's clearly time for everyone in an organisation to be brilliant together.

If your company culture doesn't support an integrated network approach to work, the team at ON-Brand Partners would love to talk about how we can help you build a culture that does.

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If you'd like to talk to ON-Brand Partners about how we can help you build the 'right' culture then we're ready to listen. Contact Us

I think that many of us have seen that a lot of change programmes have a high rate of failure - I believe the commonly reported failure rate is somewhere around...

In most cases this is simply because people are naturally afraid of what that change might mean for them, so they actively resist it - even if in reality it may in fact be a very positive thing for them directly!

If your organisation is embarking on  a transformation programme (and there is probably a 100% chance of that as the digital age turns current business models on their head) then the interview Overcoming the Fear of Change  published on the Gallup Management Journal provides some really good insights into why so many change initiatives do fail.

The point it makes about the critical role of the change sponsor(s) is a very good one, as time and time again I think we have all seen change initiatives fail simply because it seemed like no-one really cared about them, and the sponsor (typically a senior manager) isn't visible in walking the talk on why the change makes sense, and why it is a good thing.

If, for example, the CEO isn't as visible as they need to be around an initiative, David says people look around at those managing the change process and think, "Well, I see you talking about this change, but I don't hear the CEO talking about it. Why isn't he/she out here? Why aren't leaders telling their people this is important? Why are you the face of this, and why have they gone quiet?". Sound familiar? If the sponsor is unwilling or unable to play their required role, that is a strong signal that the change has never been that important.

And then, as David rightly points out, many employees will simply think...

“We start change programs, but we never seem to finish them properly” is another common frustration voiced, and a big reason why there is so much cynicism about change programmes, and that the world of change management is sadly riddled with failure. Basically it been made into something that people should fear, rather than embrace knowing it will be good for everyone.

In many cases I think a lot of organisations also mistake change management for an 'org chart' restructuring instead of restructuring what’s in peoples heads - the mindsets that influence everything they do and whether they buy into, and support, change.

This article What’s so hard about managing change and becoming more agile? is also a nice read as it also shares many of the the reasons why change is so prone to failure. I like the authors summation of what is required to make change management work.

Again, everything points to culture as the great regulator of success.

The article also has a great chart which looks at the drivers of real change and reinforces the point made in Overcoming the fear of change in that it is the things like the "lack of management commitment, passion and drive, feeling of involvement" that are the greatest barriers to change.

Working in the complex area of culture change, we have heard many times from a range of clients, about how past change initiatives  have come and gone without a trace and staff are understandably wary of them. This is one of the reasons why senior leadership engagement and  creating sustainability should be such a strong focus of any change programme i.e provide a framework, and build the competency within the organisation, to be able to allow all staff to successfully implement and manage change themselves going forward.

At ON-Brand Partners, our approach is all about helping you build a culture that overcomes the many barriers to successful change. We take into account your particular starting point and the issues and opportunities faced, to ensure the focus is tailored to the areas of greatest need. Each solution could include any of the following components of our Platform for Change, all brought together in our distinctive ON-Brand way.

With the ON-Brand approach, rather than your people saying "this isn't going to last”, instead you'll hear...

That's the time when you know the fear and cynicism has gone, excitement for the future ahead begins, and transformation sticks.