Own the Future: 50 Ways to Win from The Boston Consulting Group

Chapter 22

High-Performance Organizations

Vikram Bhalla, Jean-Michel Caye, Andrew Dyer, Lisa Dymond, Yves Morieux, and Paul Orlander

When you walk into a high-performance organization, you can feel the difference. Instead of just going through the motions, the people are energized. They are confident about their organization's strategy and the changes that are occurring, rather than confused or resigned. They know what they are supposed to be doing and how that relates to the tasks of their neighbors. Your casual observations can be confirmed quickly by checking performance measures such as sustained earnings and market share growth at corporations and, in the nonprofit world, social impact.

But how do organizations become high-performance organizations? We have compiled a list of 14 organizational and people characteristics that can be grouped into five broad dimensions and that lead to sustained performance.

• Leadership. An aligned leadership is effective deep within the organization.
• Design. A lean structure reflects the organization's strategic focus and has clear roles and accountabilities.
• People. The organization effectively translates business strategy into a powerful people strategy, attracting and retaining the most capable individuals.
• Change management. The organization has the ability to drive and sustain large-scale change and to anticipate and adapt to an increasingly volatile environment.
• Culture and engagement. The culture is shaped to achieve strategic goals, ...