What is a high performing company?
A high performing company is one that has achieved and maintains Prime on the Company Lifecycle, where there is the correct balance between producing results, entrepreneurship, operational effectiveness and organisational culture.
For any organisation, anywhere in the world, of any size, any culture or any sector to achieve Prime, there are four roles that must be executed simultaneously.
If any of these roles are missing, there will be problems in the organisation. What the problems are will depend on where the organisation is in the Lifecycle and which roles are missing.
The interesting thing is that the problems encountered by any organisation are entirely predictable, but how these problems are addressed determines the success or failure of the company.
What are the Four Roles?
- The [P]roducer Role
The [P] role focuses on producing the results for which the company was originally established. If this role is present, the organisation can be effective in what it does.
Although most company executives would measure results in terms of profits, this is not a true measure of effectiveness. Profitability is a specific point in time measure. [P]roducing results is about how the organisation is satisfying customer needs. Satisfying customer needs makes the organisation Effective.
- [A]dministrative Role
The second role is [A]dministration, which makes the organisation Efficient. This means that resources – human, products, materials and services – are delivered on time, to the right place and within the right quality to provide an efficient operation of the organisation.
- [E]ntrepreneurial role
The third role is the [E]ntrepreneurial role and is about making the organisation Proactive – taking the company to where the market is going within the foreseeable future. It is about putting things in place that give you the competitive edge and management of risk while creating new products and services to take to market.
When the [E] role is present and performed well on an on-going basis, the company is dynamic, innovative and constantly changing, not in reaction to what was going on yesterday, but by anticipating how the organisation is positioned for the emerging marketplace.
It means being disruptive in your own business before the marketplace provides the disruption.
- [I]ntegration Role
The fourth and final role is [I]ntegration and focuses on the culture of the organisation.
When the [I] role is performed to its optimum, there is interdependency and everyone works together to resolve problems. The language of an integrated company is “we” and “us”, not “them” and “they.”
A company that is integrated operates an Organic, rather than mechanistic culture.
When the [I] role is effectively performed the organisation develops a culture of mutual trust and respect amongst employees and between employees and customers.
PAEI
These are the four roles that are individually necessary and that together enable you to become a high performance company.
Whenever any of these four roles are missing, there will be problems and the nature of the problems encountered will depend upon where the organisation is in the Company Lifecycle.
The Lifecycle
You will see form the diagram below that at various stages of the Lifecycle certain roles will be dominant. As companies progress through the growing stages, one or more of the role’s dominance changes.
In the Prime or high performance stage of the Lifecycle the four roles are in balance. However, these roles are difficult to balance and invariably this creates friction and conflict within the organisation.
For example if [P] is greater than [E] the company will focus on short-term thinking and if [A] is greater than [I] the company will become more bureaucratic.
Conclusion
While many companies aspire to become high performing because they understand that this creates competitive advantage, it is neither simple or easy to achieve because:
- the four roles will inevitably be in conflict and a culture of mutual trust and respect must be created in which conflict can be made constructive
- no one person can perform all of the roles, so complementary teams are needed where all of the PAEI roles are performed
- different roles are dominant as companies progress through the growing stages of the Lifecycle. As you grow you need different sets of skills, remembering the old saying that “what got you here won’t get you there.”
If you would like further information about the Company Lifecycle and PAEI Roles please email us or call us: +1 (323) 473 3158 USA/Caribbean or +44 (0)20 3290 5703 UK/Europe