In an HPO, long-term gain is far more important than short-term profit. This long-term orientation is extended to all stakeholders of the organization, that is, shareholders as well as employees, suppliers, clients and society at large. An HPO continuously strives to enhance customer value creation by learning what customers want, understanding their values, building excellent relationships and having direct contact with them, involving them in the organization’s affairs, being responsive to them, and focusing on continuously enhancing customer value. An HPO maintains good long-term relationships with all stakeholders by networking broadly, taking an interest in and giving back to society, and creating mutual, beneficial opportunities and win-win relationships. An HPO also grows through partnerships with suppliers and customers, thereby turning the organization into an international network corporation. Management of an HPO is committed to the organization for the long haul by balancing common purpose with self-interest, and teaching organizational members to put the needs of the enterprise first. They grow new management from their own ranks by encouraging staff to become leaders, filling positions with internal talents, and promoting from within. An HPO creates a safe and secure workplace by giving people a sense of safety (physical and mental) and job security and by using dismissal as a last resort.
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HPO characteristics: Long-Term Orientation
- Our organization maintains good and long-term relationships with all stakeholders.
- Our organization is aimed at servicing the customers as best as possible.
- The management of our organization has been with the company for a long time.
- New management is promoted from within the organization.
- Our organization is a secure workplace for organizational members.
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“One of our strengths is the way we treat everybody
who has dealings with us, be it clients, suppliers, or our neighbors in this area. We regularly take stock of our stakeholders and think about the way we interact with them: what do we want to achieve with them, which way do we need to go with them, how can we improve our cooperation. We like to involve our stakeholders in what we are doing, ask their opinion, solicit their ideas. We don’t do this in a quick and dirty way, we really take our time to interact with them. What helps is that many of our people, including management, live in the area so they are immersed in the local community and thus well-informed about possible sentiments toward TATA Steel. This attitude of ours developed in the 1960s and 1970s when we where the largest employer in this area, which comes with a huge responsibility as management realized that many families were dependent on the company for their livelihood. We must have done something right because our people are not job hoppers and tend to stay long, and we have good relationships with people representatives organized in, for instance, the works councils. Investing in your stakeholders is not only a moral obligation but also makes perfect economic sense: it is a very good, pleasant and therefore productive environment here!”