They didn't clearly define their measures of success, other than not to spend more money than they had. Again, this is common. To the credit of this organization, the new executive director and board wanted to change that. They realized that to achieve a peak performance culture, they would need a vision and a strategy that resonated with their market and a clear articulation of success (horizontal alignment). They also knew that this strategic plan would illuminate several actionable items necessary to achieve these goals (vertical alignment). Combine these two with passion, and you have a good start on a peak performance culture.
Again, my point is not to pass judgment on the leadership of organizations but rather to reassure you that most organizations are not applying the best practices outlined in this book. Why? Because organizational culture, let alone a peak performance version, is challenging to define. That's actually very good news. If an organization can survive without attending to the key metrics of peak performance, imagine the level of success they can aspire to if they do focus on these metrics. The trap many of these organizations fall into is that without the fear created by failure, they are often uninterested in doing the hard work – the visionary and strategic work, not the daily activities that keep you busy – necessary to unleash their full potential.
Passion, horizontal alignment, and vertical alignment are not the whole of peak performance culture, however. A comprehensive exploration of organizational culture must include the customer experience – because it is far less important to examine what we think our culture is compared to what our clients think. The employee experience is equally important. And lest you, the reader, forget that my company is called the Leadership Difference, the behavior of an organization's leaders is paramount to creating a peak performance culture.
WHAT YOU'LL FIND IN THE BOOK
This book shares the metrics that I have discovered while working with thousands of organizations all over the world. My intent is to provide the reader – you – with a guide for organizational development excellence that you can use to evaluate your company's current state, aspire to a desired future state, and construct a strategy for moving from the former to the latter. Each chapter will introduce a key component to peak performance culture, provide a thorough definition of the component including examples and details related to it, and close with some key considerations for you as you evaluate your own situation relative to this metric.
To make the self‐assessment of your organizational culture easier, I have included an Peak Performance Culture Assessment. This tool can be used as a discussion starter with an executive team, an interview guide for discussions with a CEO, or a checklist for organizational development implementation. All in all, the process is akin to building a house with a foundation, framework, power sources, and inhabitants.
Few things in life are strictly sequential; the same is true of organizational development. Sure, it would be great if you could read the subsequent chapter, put the book down after completing that chapter, work on that metric, and then return to the book for the next step. Theoretically, if you are planning to begin a business, you might be able to execute on that approach. But the reality is that most readers will be trying to implement improvements during ongoing operations. That means the implementation will be more systemic than sequential. For that reason, I encourage the reader to consume the entire content of the book before assembling a plan for implementing ideas.
All organizations do some things well and other things poorly, just as a house may have good “bones” but poor aesthetics. It is exceptionally rare to find an organization that does everything at the highest level. I certainly haven't found such an organization during my career. Even if your company is succeeding – perhaps especially if your company is succeeding – it is important to understand why. That way you don't inadvertently change processes or ideologies that are critical to your success. Even successful organizations can reach an entirely new level of excellence by tightening up a few things.
I encourage you to read each chapter and then pause to reflect on the “key considerations” that are offered at the conclusion. These considerations are not all‐inclusive, so feel free to expand on ideas that the content sparked that are unrelated to either the “key considerations” or the Peak Performance Culture Assessment. Once you have documented your thoughts on how the content of that chapter impacts your own organization, you can then move on to the next chapter with a clean slate and clear focus on the next metric. By the time you have completed the book, you will have accumulated an immense number of actionable items that you will need to prioritize and distill into a plan of implementation.
THE PLAN REQUIRES WORK
In my experience, the momentum for organizational improvement is high during the initial parts of the project, but wanes as ideas and opinions give way to the minutia of actionable items. This book has the potential to generate robust and important discussion among executives about the opportunities to improve organizational performance.
The challenge to those responsible for facilitating these discussions and translating them into a meaningful improvement plan will be nudging executives past the big, broad, conceptual discussions and into the exploration of the policies, practices, and experiences that inform the transactions that define operational excellence and peak performance culture. There is no magic pill, mantra, or panacea that will emerge from this book. I wish I could offer that – I could retire. Rather, the value this book offers is a comprehensive template for evaluating the broad subjects that predict success. Beyond that, the hard work falls to you.
If you are working as a team to enhance the performance of your organization, I would recommend tackling each chapter independently, as each chapter could easily be a year‐long project. Use the “key considerations” to launch meaningful discussions with the group. This will lead you to identify priorities and tasks that need to be assigned. As I mentioned, no endeavor is strictly sequential, but I have tried to lay out the metrics in a linear perspective. Once you have completed the book, go back to the discussion topics that were generated by each chapter and give serious consideration to them, beginning with those in Chapter 2, then Chapter 3, then 4, and so on. Of course, there are exceptions, but generally this approach should work best.
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As I read this, I am worried that I have already scared you about the path ahead. My bad. Organizational development is dense and never‐ending. But it is also gratifying. Stay focused on small but tangible enhancements and be mindful of making distinctions between activities and impact, lip service versus results. Celebrate each success, no matter how small. That's one of the things that I have noticed over these last 25 years. Peak performance cultures celebrate successes. Often. Be sure to do that.
Most of what you will read in this book are concepts that I learned through various forms of failure – trial and error, solving an existing problem (either in my own company or a client's), researching concepts of which I was ignorant. For that reason, I am most proud of this work. It is real. It is not academic in nature, although I learned some of the content in academic settings. It is practical, applicable, and proven. The ideas work. And they work for multinational companies, nonprofit associations, and the local business. They worked for me and they will work for you.
To address the three questions I posited earlier in this chapter:
What is a culture? In my view, an organization's culture reflects how each team member behaves, executes, prioritizes, and delivers on its expressed vision, strategy, and core ideology as measured by its customers and employees. By this definition, every single organization has a culture. Most exist without intent. They have evolved over time and most do not promote peak performance.
What kind of culture drives peak performance? Those with a clear vision, strategy, and ideology that resonates with the market and generates the results deemed most important by its stakeholders. This requires a rigid commitment to the practices that support these strategies, the creation of exceptional customer and employee experiences, and a passionate leadership approach that is rich with techniques that maximize communication and feed the intrinsic