Culture Change and Performance

Corporate Culture and Performance By John P. Kotter & James L. Heskett Corporate Culture and Performance is a well-researched book that includes four related studies, examining over 200 cultures and their relationship to performance. The authors think of culture at two levels. At the deeper, less visible level, culture refers to values that tend to persist over time even when group membership changes. This level of culture is extremely hard to change. The second level of culture refers to behaviors, style, and the way "things get done around here." This level is more visible and nearly as difficult to change. How do cultures emerge?  One common pattern in the emergence of cultures according to the authors is the following:

Tuning into their Brain - Employee behaviour for enhanced performance

Organizations have some form of program designed to nurture high-potential employees. However a recent study by the Corporate Executive Board revealed that 40% of "high-potential" job moves  produce disappointing results. Disengagement of employees also is remarkable: One in three emerging stars reported feeling disengaged from his or her company.  Even more striking, 12% of all the high potentials in the study said they were actively searching for a new job.  Why do companies have so much difficulty in their succession planning? The Corporate Executive Board's research revealed that senior managers make misguided assumptions about these employees and take actions on their behalf that actually hinder their development. When dealing with high-potential employees, firms tend to make six common errors: assuming that all of them are highly engaged, equating current performance with future potential, delegating the management of high potentials down in the organization, shielding promising employees from early derailment, expecting stars to share the pain of organization-wide cutbacks, and failing to link high potentials and their careers to corporate strategy. In other words "tune into their brains". Having knowledge of how our brain functions facilitates enhanced performance. Key points to take into account are: Learning should be broken down into "bite-size" to increase itsne absorbency and effectiveness. Allow time for your people to integrate learning into long-term memory.  Fairness and respect gives brain a chemical boost. Stress inhibits clear thinking. Uncertainty arouses fear that decreases the ability to make decisions. Employees need some ownership over situations to better accept change. Engaging people in more active learning techniques improves retention. And here are some things you should do to keep your top talent on track: don't just assume they are engaged - give them stimulating work, a chance to prosper, and recognition or they will walk don't mistake current high performance for future potential - test candidates for ability, engagement, and aspiration don't delegate talent development to line managers - this will limit the talents access to senior members don't shield talent - place talent in live fire roles don't assume top talent will take one for the team - compensate top talent differently and creatively don't keep young leaders in the dark - share strategy with them
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