High Performance with Ease
Achieving consistent great results doesn’t have to be so difficult!
In many organisations people can be working incredibly hard only to achieve results that are inconsistent and fall short of what customers and the organisation require. Not only will that be adversely affecting customer perception and margin, but it will almost certainly also impact those working in the business. There’s only so long that level of effort and frustration can be sustained, with the inevitable impact on the longer–term health of the people and the organisation.
If you recognise your organisation here, be assured you’re not alone. I’ve seen this time and again in organisations I’ve worked with in my 20+ years as a consultant.
I even experienced it myself early in my managerial career. My team was sacrificing long hours, working hard yet making little headway.
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Through a series of experiences, I came to recognise that working this way was not only not necessary to achieve good results, it was actually undesirable! A far better way was not only possible, but others in our industry were already achieving it. With the help of a mentor, I learned what was needed to create a different way of working and, over the course of the next few months, transformed the performance of our team.
Building on that experience and study of some of the world’s top performing companies, over the last 20 years I’ve enabled organisations in a variety of sectors – from engineering businesses to healthcare, in offices and on the shop floor – to achieve what I refer to these days as ‘high performance with ease’ – a ‘state of being’ for organisations where:
everyone is equipped and willing to identify and act on opportunities for improvement.
the organisation is viewed as a ‘whole system’, with goals and processes aligned to deliver exceptional results consistently as a matter of routine.
continuous improvement and personal development are a way of life., not a ‘bolt–on extra’.
With clarity of purpose, the right processes and a culture that truly engages everyone, great performance can be achieved consistently with less cost and effort.
Everyone working in the business has a less stressful and more fulfilling work life, customers are more satisfied, and the organisation is more profitable.
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What I’ve also learned over that time is how hard it is for individuals and organisations to do this on their own. They’ll seek to apply a method – lean, operational excellence, six sigma or similar – and yet struggle to get the results they aspire to. The ‘desire’ may be there, but they get ‘stuck’. Even worse, hard won performance improvements aren’t sustained. In short, they’re missing something, and it can be very hard to see from within what that is. I know that, without a mentor, I’d never have made the transition I did out of that difficult situation. As someone said to me recently, “It's hard to read the label when you’re inside the jar!”
To overcome this, and deliver ‘high performance with ease’, experience tells me that two things are required.
An external perspective to help you identify what’s really holding you back and keep you on track.
A plan of action that’s tailored to your organisation’s strengths, culture and specific situation.
That means we don’t come with a standard ‘transformation programme’, rather a set of guiding principles and methods that we apply to your specific situation.
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We call the underpinning principles and methods our ‘high performance foundations’. After all, any great building needs good foundations. This is our view on what is the minimum ‘structure’ needed to begin to establish a ‘high performance with ease’ environment.
Part of our initial engagement will be to establish how strong each of these foundations is in your organisation.
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There are two core strands to High Performance Foundations.
Team Performance: This strand focusses on a clear framework within which teams can manage and improve their own performance, defining the necessary thinking, principles, methods and tools required.
Too often organisations focus primarily on this area of activity and wonder why initial success is not sustained or that the results fail to live up to expectations.
A second key area is required.
Leadership Climate: Leaders create the environment for ‘high performance with ease’ to really take hold. From what they talk about, the way they behave, how they interact with others in the organisation and the support they make available to their people to work on improvement – all of these contribute to ensuring that teams are inspired, encouraged and equipped to be the best versions of themselves.
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We start by taking time to really understand what’s going on in your organisation. Then we develop with you a bespoke programme of action to create the conditions required for ‘high performance with ease’. This will cover clarity of purpose, thinking and behaviours in addition to applying a range of well–proven tools and techniques to create effective processes that deliver the results you aspire to.
This first stage comes at no cost and risk to you. There is no charge until you’re confident that we can deliver the results you’re hoping for.
Once we agree, we’ll bring our skills and experience to energise and equip your teams with the knowledge and skills they need to create and implement better ways of working, getting involved as much or as little as necessary. They’ll deliver better results consistently, more quickly, more profitably and with less effort, enabling them to have more fulfilling work lives in the process.
It all starts with a short call where I’ll answer any questions you may have and begin to explore your business challenges. Simply call, email or click the button below to book that no charge, no obligation conversation.
“The time I’ve spent working with Harvey has really opened my eyes to some of the ways in which we can attack the challenges we face in operations. He creates an environment that promotes clear and comfortable conversation which helps the ideas flow freely.”