OEC Consultant's Corner
Building A
High Performance
Culture print
page 
Working with senior management teams to build
high performing organizations
By: Klaus D. Oebel
Shared assumptions, values, vision, core strategy, outcomes,
and implementation build high performing teams. I therefore
guide executives through a structured process aimed at building
consensus on each of these issues. The process itself shapes
individual team members into a self-directed team that owns
the organization’s strategy, is committed to its implementation,
and will create a performance-driven culture that continuously
adapts to challenges in pursuit of increasing shareholder
value.
- Share the assumptions: This involves understanding and
agreeing on, in detail, the vital few assumptions about the
organization’s external environment (society, economy,
industry), and the organization’s internal environment
(strengths and weaknesses). These assumptions define the
opportunities and threats that the organization’s strategy
will be designed to exploit or fend off, respectively.
- Share the values: This involves agreeing on the basic
beliefs of the organization, which shape its employees’
norms and behaviors. Congruence of organizational values
with those of the individuals leading the organization is a
major element of high performance.
- Share the vision: This involves agreeing on how the
organization will impact the dynamics of its industry in a
specific way.
- Share the core strategy: This involves determining if the
organization’s core strategy will be segment driven, product
driven, or profit driven — in other words, if it wants to
exploit its franchise within a segment or industry; wants to
“conquer the world” with its products and services; or is
driven to achieve profit from a multitude of products,
services and markets. An organization must focus on one core
strategy.
- Share the outcomes: This involves agreeing on strategic
outcomes. I encourage the organization’s leaders to be
ambitious about size and growth as well as return and
profit, since expectations create environments in which to
excel.
- Share the implementation: This involves
designing and measuring the implementation of organizational
strategy in at least five strategic competency areas: financial,
market (customers, suppliers, strategic alliances, competition),
operations (processes), innovation, and employees (the performance
system). The senior team must take responsibility for managing
the interdependencies.
For more information,
please contact Joan Caruso, Managing Director of Organizational
Effectiveness Consulting at The Ayers Group — (212)
889-7788.
Klaus D. Oebel has consulted with organizations in the U.S.
and Europe for over thirty years. He specializes in assisting
senior management in developing their organization’s
strategy and supporting them in the resolution of strategy
implementation issues.
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