Personal Ways that Help Enhance Organizational Performance

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

MANAGING FOR SOCIETY
By Evelio G. Echavez
Personal ways that help enhance organizational performance

There is stiff competition everywhere for businesses today, making survival and profitability a constant challenge. Many management scholars, such as Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University, say that the effective management of people has become more important in increasing organizational performance than the traditional sources of success, such as process technology and protected markets. Pfeffer says that the old sources of competitive advantage can still provide competitive leverage, but to a lesser degree now than in the past. This new source of competitive advantage can be obtained by the right selection and hiring of employees; training and developing them; and providing the right environment for the employees to participate in the operational decisions required in their workplace.

On the other hand, there are ways by which employees are able to help in improving the performance of their respective units. Employers today are interested in getting new hires that have the right attitude and who have the “right fit” in relation to their organizations’ cultures. John Maxwell, a well-known author and motivational speaker, and another author, Keith Harrell, express this well in their books, The Winning Attitude: Your Key to Personal Success and Attitude is Everything, respectively.

Some years ago, while I was working as an executive of a manufacturing company in the South, I watched with great interest how a young engineer progressed in the organization. He grew up and studied in one of the best universities in Metro Manila. He worked without complaining and joined clean-up jobs as part of our company’s good housekeeping program that required everybody involved in “getting dirty.” He provided valuable suggestions and was able to maintain good interpersonal relations with his colleagues. He enjoyed work and learned a lot wherever he was assigned as a cadet engineer. He grew very fast in the organization and was even sent abroad by the company to take up graduate studies in engineering. He rose from the ranks quicker than most because he had the right attitude.

I was assigned as head of operations in another company, where the attitudes of the workforce and that of the management group were so negative. The two groups were not talking to each other and there was complete distrust. We were able to bring the group together, remove the distrust and eventually changed the attitude of the two groups. As a result, we were able to break production records “left and right.” Where previously, it was not possible to have a meeting without having heated arguments, we found our meetings to be interesting and productive.

We even had dinner-cum-socia­lization among people who previously did not want to be together. The success was attained because everybody changed his attitude from a negative one to a positive and winning one.

Another way is making work enjoyable. Some people do not enjoy their work; they dread getting into their workplace. They think that work is dry, scary and/or boring. I had a boss before who told us that he could not anymore distinguish the fun he experienced when playing tennis and when working; he enjoyed both. One of the principles in Total Quality Control, as popularized by the Japanese, is the elimination of fear. Bosses should eliminate practices that bring fear among workers, such as excessive displays of anger. Employees are more productive when they are able to give suggestions and do their work without fear of being subjected to embarrassment. Some companies even tolerate mistakes for as long as the organization benefits from them through the lessons learned.

Employees should not leave everything to the company in improving organizational performance but should contribute in their own ways by choosing the right attitude, making work enjoyable and eliminating unnecessary fear from the workplace.