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By Robert J. Thomas, Fred Harburg and Ana Dutra A culture of high performance depends on commitment at the highest levels of the organization—not only to set it in motion but also to maintain the momentum that ensures ongoing high performance. Accenture’s research has identified what leaders need to do to develop the five key 指导英国MBA论文mindsets that underpin this performance anatomy.As anyone who has ever tried to persuadesomeone to change political allegiancesknows, getting people to think differently isa nearly impossible task. That’s why perhapsthe central attribute of a successful leader is theability to change the way people think. For topexecutives, the challenge is especially great:They must get thousands of people in an organizationto think in similar terms about thepurpose of the business and what they individuallymust do to accomplish that purpose.Put another way, the successful leader mustget everyone to share the same specific mindsets.In the course of a two-year investigation,we determined that to improve businessperformance, five mindsets matter most. Theyconstitute a culture of high performance or,in our terminology, a performance anatomy.Think of performance anatomy as beingdivided into three components: mindsets,practices and results. When the mindsets arealigned, they generate operational practicesthat, in turn, lead to superior business results(see chart, page 42). Left on its own, however,the performance anatomy of even the bestorganization will remain at rest, a prisoner ofinertia. Only when the necessary force, in theform of leadership, is exerted does performanceanatomy become an effective driver ofhigh performance. At that point, continuedeffort by senior leaders creates the culturalmomentum that is critical to ongoing busi-The journal ofhigh-performance businessThis article originally appearedin the January 2007 issue ofHow to create a culture
http://www.ukassignment.org/yingguolunwen/of high performanceBy Robert J. Thomas, Fred Harburg and Ana Dutra
A culture of high performance depends on commitment at the highestlevels of the organization—not only to set it in motion but also
to maintain the momentum that ensures ongoing high performance.Accenture’s research has identified what leaders need to do to develop
the five key mindsets that underpin this performance anatomy.ness success. Leaders may also needto recalibrate and redirect a performance
anatomy periodically torespond to new strategic needs or
changed competitive conditions.Again, creating or changing mindsetsis easier said than done. Where doesone start? Mission statements? More
communication from above? Strategysummits? Some of these tactics cancertainly help if deftly employed. But
we have found that the developmentof each of the five mindsets most
critical to high performance is associatedwith a key leadership action.#p#分页标题#e#
Companies can sometimes get stuckin the conventional world of “eitheror”:
Either we can manage for todayand optimize returns with existingpeople and assets, or we can investin the future in the hope that ournext generation of products andservices will lead the way out of anunsatisfying present.
In an environment of increasing complexity,however, a one-dimensionalfocus is fatal. It has never been agood idea for an organization toignore the short term in favor oflong-range planning, but today, in theface of increasingly demandingexpectations for flawless execution,
it’s suicidal. Similarly, a “me-too”strategy with operational excellence atits center will ensure only that an
organization goes out of businessmore efficiently.
Leaders of high-performance businessesavoid the either-or trap bya “both-and” approach andsurrounding themselves with talented
individuals who excel in both disciplines.While insisting on outstandingreturns from today’s operations (as
demanded by investors), they alsoinvest heavily in what it will take to
be a game-changing innovator in thefuture. Along the way, they catalyze anew way of thinking in their organizationsthat embraces the creation of
market spaces of uncontested opportunityon the one hand and a deepcommitment to flawless executionon the other.Consider how the senior team at
Harrah’s Entertainment has graspednew opportunities in its industry whiledemanding operational excellence.Between 1999 and 2005, the companygrew from 17 casinos and 36,000employees to about 40 casinos and85,000 employees. Following fast onthe heels of its 2005 acquisition ofCaesars Entertainment for $9.3 billion,Harrah’s is set to close onthe purchase of its first European
casino and is in the running to buildultra-luxurious resorts in Singaporeand Macao. During this period ofaggressive growth, refining andpreserving the company’s uniqueculture of high performance hasbeen one of CEO Gary Loveman’sbiggest challenges. As he explains,“Bringing the ‘secret sauce’ to manymore places rather than changing therecipe” is critical to the company’sability to succeed over time.
At the same time, Loveman hasmade it clear that flawlessly executingtoday’s strategy is a paramount
concern. Harrah’s managers areexpected to rigorously analyze thebusiness and to justify their plansand decisions on the basis of theirability to add value. New hires ar2
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Mindset 1: Maintaining the right balance betweenmarket-making and disciplined execution
Leadership action: Avoid false trade-offs and committo a dual focus on the present and the future.often surprised by the expectation(in a gaming business, no less) that
nothing be left to chance.
Tim Stanley, Harrah’s CIO, explains:“One of the first things they figureout is you need to have a plan, weekby week or even day by day. We’reserious about planning and analysis—not just how you’re going tospend the money but how you’regoing to operate. At Harrah’s,predictability is expected.”#p#分页标题#e#
But doesn’t the dual emphasis onthe present and the future confuse
Harrah’s employees? No, becausesenior leaders reconcile the two byemphasizing a key ingredient in thesecret sauce: the company’s “serviceprofitchain.” In the early 1990s,before he joined the company,
Loveman and four other professors atHarvard Business School developedthe concept, which explains how
Harrah’s makes money and howevery employee contributes to thatprocess. In a service-profit chain,employee behaviors are the biggestand most direct influence on customersatisfaction; customer satisfaction is,in turn, the best predictor of revenuegrowth and, ultimately, of profitability.Harrah’s leaders clearly and continuouslydrive this message home toeveryone in the company. By ensuringthat all employees are on the
same page about the business’s value
logic, they provide a touchstone for
every encounter, every conversationabout operations and every strategicmove. This allows the company toreject the false trade-off in which theaggressive pursuit of new markets anddisciplined execution are perceived asantithetical activities. Leaders at othercompanies in pursuit of high performance
should take a page fromHarrah’s book and close their ears tothe siren song of either-or. (For moreon Harrah’s Entertainment, see“Exploring the mindset of the highperformer,” Outlook, October 2005.)
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A virtuous circle
Think of performance anatomy as being divided into three components:
mindsets, practices and results. When mindsets are aligned, they generate
指导英国MBA论文operational practices that lead to superior business results.
Results
Mindsets
PracticesManagers in lower-performing organizations
complain that they don’t
have time for the “people stuff.” Yet a
knowledge-age business has no hope
of achieving high performance unless
its top executives lead the charge to
acquire, develop, assess and retain talent.
They can’t simply push HR harder;
instead, they must get personally
involved in the search for talent and
the development of people.
One way they can do that is by
becoming obsessive talent scouts. By
continually scanning for the best
people both inside and outside the
organization, executives clearly communicate
by word and deed that they
care deeply about finding, developing
and retaining talent. They often make
subordinates uncomfortable unless
they, too, demonstrate a keen awareness
of their people’s talent and look
for ways to multiply its value.
Scouting for talent is particularly
important for BMW, whose lifeblood is
innovation. In fact, the carmaker routinely
plans for professions that don’t#p#分页标题#e#
exist yet but will be needed in the
future. As Chairman Norbert Reithofer
explains: “Today, we need to know as
precisely as possible what skills will be
necessary tomorrow. In order to successfully
develop, produce and market
a new vehicle, we must shape and
master innovation.” BMW’s approach
to recruiting and people development,
expressed in the chairman’s maxim, “It
takes the best to make the best,” reflects
a powerful talent-multiplier mindset.
At UPS, innovation is also critical but
so is near-flawless reliability, since the
company’s reputation is directly tied to
its ability to deliver nearly 15 million
packages a day without a hitch.
One of the keys to UPS’s ability to
balance these needs is hiring a lot of
raw talent. By bringing in 19-year-old
college students to work part-time or
during the holiday rush, UPS managers
get to know a large number
of potential long-term employees. In
fact, 78 percent of the company’s vice
presidents started their UPS careers
in non-management positions. This
“feeder system” recruitment strategy,
指导英国MBA论文coupled with the company’s promotefrom-
within program, makes it possible
for new hires to go far in the
organization. John Saunders, vice
president of human resources,
describes the approach this way:
“We tell our human resources representatives,
‘You’re hiring a CEO today.
We don’t know who it is. But somewhere,
we’re hiring one. So make
sure you treat them properly” (see
“Inside the values-driven culture at
UPS,” Outlook, September 2006).
Another way for leaders to create
a talent-multiplier mindset is by
publicly placing people with high
potential in critical positions or at
the head of important initiatives
even before they’re ready for such
roles. They know it is much better to
challenge people with assignments
that provide some stretch and discomfort
than to leave them for
extended periods in positions that
fail to draw on their full potential.
Explaining the criteria for such decisions
is important, too, as it demonstrates
the leader’s farsightedness in
matching people with positions.
Marriott International provides its
managers with innovative opportunities
to learn from experience. Mike
Jannini was recruited for a corporate
staff role because of his graduate
degree in marketing, but, he explains,
he “wanted to operate a hotel, and
they indulged me for seven years,
at four hotels in four states.” When,
Jannini says, he was “tapped on the#p#分页标题#e#
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Mindset 2: Obsessively identifying and multiplying talent
Leadership action: Invest a disproportionate amount
of time in recruiting and developing people.shoulder” and asked to join Marriott’s
corporate staff, he was able to bring
to that position a level of operational
savvy that helped drive the company’s
rapid and successful program of brand
segmentation. Today, Jannini is the
hotelier’s executive vice president
for brand management (see “Why
Marriott shareholders sleep well at
night,” Outlook, May 2006).
Motorola is also focused on out-ofthe-
box talent development. For
example, several years ago, the company
employed Ron Garriques as a
chief engineer overseeing product
line management. In 2002, after
Garriques completed an executive
development program and expressed
a strong interest in developing himself
as more of a general manager,
the company named him senior vice
president and general manager for
Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Both the chairman and the CEO were
personally involved in the decision
and expressed confidence that
Garriques could make the leap.
The move was not a comfortable
one for the engineer, and it stretched
him in many ways. In the end,
however, he flourished in the role,
driving significant increases in sales,
customer satisfaction and market
share between 2002 and 2004. He is
now president of Motorola’s mobile
devices business, headquartered in
Libertyville, Illinois.
These stories illustrate the creativity,
management effort and time investment
needed to build an organization
into a talent multiplier.
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Executives today are at risk of
drowning in an ocean of technologygenerated
data. One possible response
to data overload is to tune out completely,
but that only takes the problem
to the other extreme.
A better response is to make the company’s
business model as simple and
as transparent as possible (a core principle
of the distinctive-capabilities
building block of high performance),
and to figure out exactly which measures
are needed to illuminate the
model’s success. The next step is
to constantly emphasize the model
and the measures so that a selectivescorecard
mindset is embedded in
the organization.
Recall Gary Loveman’s practice of
placing every question, every strategic
initiative and every customer
encounter in the context of Harrah’s
service-profit chain. Similarly,
Amazon.com’s CEO Jeff Bezos carries
around a simple schematic rendering
of a systems model—arrows linking#p#分页标题#e#
critical revenue drivers—that he
shares at every opportunity with
employees whenever questions arise
about, say, why the company has
elected to add a new feature to its
website or offer a new shipping
option. Amazon’s model, like
Loveman’s chain, provides a powerful
touchstone for explaining the
entire business.
At Best Buy, a key measure the top
team uses to track business performance
is employee engagement.
Generated by survey, employee
engagement scores indicate workers’
commitment to the job and to the
company. Best Buy, which has nearly
1,000 stores, can then use the scores
to analyze how local management
Mindset 3: Using a selective scorecard
to measure business performance
Leadership action: Rely on a simple, memorable way of measuring success and
use every occasion to share those success stories throughout the organization.variations relate to the stores’ financial
performance.
In an internal study, analysts found
that in the store with the highest
employee engagement score, 91 percent
of the workers agreed with the
statement, “I know what’s expected
of me at work.” In the store with the
lowest engagement score, only 27
percent agreed. Moreover, the store
with the highest score ranked in the
top 10 percent of Best Buy stores as
measured by P&L budget variance;
the store with the lowest score
ranked in the bottom 10 percent. The
company’s leaders make sure that
store managers are aware of the
importance of these numbers to Best
Buy’s continuing high performance.
At Baltimore-based Constellation
Energy Group, the company’s most
valuable asset is an intangible one:
its knowledge of the industry and
understanding of the energy business’s
value chain. Measuring how
these assets translate into performance
is at the top of the company’s
selective scorecard.
To bring more quantitative rigor
to managing the business and to
improve the development of its
intangible-knowledge assets,
Chairman, President & CEO Mayo
Shattuck III hired several Ph.D.s—
including mathematicians who
could bring a skill set not usually
found in energy companies—to help
address the extraordinary complexity
of such an approach to high performance
in this equally complex
business. Shattuck recognizes that
selectively using data to measure
and model key business processes
is one of the hallmarks of high performance,
and he seeks to spread
the selective-scorecard mindset
throughout the organization (see
“Constellation Energy: A star is
born,” Outlook, January 2006).#p#分页标题#e#
Leaders who want their people to
buy in to what the company is
doing should be prepared to distill
its unique value proposition—what
Accenture calls the company’s value
algorithm—into an elevator speech
that everyone in the organization
can absorb and act on.
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Executives often feel pressure to
keep up with changes in technology,
regardless of the possible impact of
new hardware or software on business
performance. But implementing
change for change’s sake is a surefire
way to get a low return on
the investment.
According to an Accenture study,
high-performance businesses often
spend less on information technology
than their competitors
do, but their investments always
have strategic implications (see
Outlook Special Edition: Breaking
Away, May 2004). These companies
also push their technology leaders
to think like business strategists and
operators. As a result, an organizational
mindset in which IT is seen
as a strategic asset takes hold.
Gary Loveman’s leadership is
again instructive. After taking over
Harrah’s, he was inundated with
internal proposals to update and
dramatically expand the company’s
website. Loveman responded with
a simple question: “What are we
doing to make sure that our best
customers know that there’s a promotion
at a given property next
Thursday?” His point wasn’t to
Mindset 4: Recognizing technology as a strategic asset
Leadership action: Invest in technologies that will
demonstrably lead to better business performance.throw cold water on IT spending
but to focus the technologists’
attention on devising and implementing
initiatives that would
connect to business expansion
with a solid line.
At many companies today, the focus
is on convergence between business
strategy and IT strategy. At some
companies, however, the use of IT
as a strategic asset is so deeply
embedded as to be unconscious.
UPS, for example, is no longer a
mere package-delivery company,
and that’s because IT is at the core
of its strategy and its business
model. Information technology
made it possible for UPS to make
the global, synchronized commerce
of goods, information and funds
happen more smoothly.
Through business cases and postimplementation
measurement, UPS
monitors the returns of a billiondollar
IT budget. And when the
company decided to invest $600
million in its package flow software,
the decision emanated, according
to CIO David Barnes, from the leadership’s
strategy to achieve “one-toone
customer relationships, while#p#分页标题#e#
maintaining an IT infrastructure
with ‘dial-tone reliability.’ ”
This blend of reliability and strategic
linkage is the essence of the
IT mindset that high performers
should strive for.
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Organizational momentum encourages
the continuation of current
practices and habits, particularly in
successful organizations. At worst,
staying on the same track, once it
becomes a rut, can ossify the organization
and leave it vulnerable to
competitors that will outmaneuver
it, out-innovate it and out-adapt it.
Overworked aphorisms regarding the
importance of continuous change do
little to provide competitive advantage.
Instead, leaders must ensure
the organization is developing
increased market sensitivity and
good judgment concerning what
should and should not be sustained
and what should be renewed (see
“Continuous renewal: Managing for
the upside,” Outlook, June 2005).
Leaders must constantly be alert for
competitive softness and vulnerability,
and for new market opportunities.
They should build a bridge to sustained
competitiveness by uncovering
innovations and new markets
and exploiting them before their
competitors do.
That’s why, for example, Harrah’s
experiments with new forms of
gaming, such as video gaming in its
existing properties and experiments
in its research group with web- and
cell-phone-based gaming. Marriott
continues to probe for experiences
that will make its services more
attractive to what the company calls
“enjoyment travelers,” as well as to
younger businesspeople. The key,
according to Marriott brand management
chief Jannini, is both fostering
and protecting a willingness to challenge
the status quo: “As long as
it’s about the business, you can stab
every sacred cow on the table.”
Effective leaders must also demonstrate
fierce pride in the best elements of the
organization’s history. Rather than living
in the past, however, they should
instead concentrate on articulating its
relevance to a rapidly changing future.
Mindset 5: Emphasizing continuous renewal
Leadership action: Ensure that the organization understands what
to preserve from its current ways of doing business and what to jettison.8
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This requires them to be storytellers of
the highest order: knowing how to
engage people in a shared vision, how
to lift the spirits and aspirations of
their people, and how to deal honestly
and forthrightly with the pain that can
accompany change.
In late 2001, when Mayo Shattuck
became CEO of Constellation Energy,#p#分页标题#e#
he had to right a ship that was listing
badly. The industry was being buffeted
by the shockwaves of the Enron
scandal, and Shattuck knew it was
essential to remind employees of the
company’s proud heritage and history
of innovation. Using an extensive
array of artifacts from the company’s
past, he created a veritable museum
on each floor of Constellation’s headquarters.
These museums were not just
an exercise in nostalgia, however:
They were reminders to all who saw
them that Constellation had never
flinched from taking on major (but
calculated) risks or from embracing
necessary changes to the business (a
typical example: early incandescent
lights that replaced oil lamps and in
the process dramatically changed the
company’s technology and skill base).
To reinforce a continuous renewal
mindset a leader must challenge people
to work effectively, to consistently
improve and, ultimately, to completely
revolutionize their jobs.
Bill Marriott exemplifies this spirit
at Marriott, where he is well known
for such pithy comments as, “I don’t
care what we did in the past” and
“Success is never final.” That attitude
explains why, if profit margins
increase from 35 percent to 39 percent
at a particular hotel, someone
will ask, “What will it take to get
them to 40 percent?” President and
COO Bill Shaw puts it in context:
“People in another company might
be deflated by that attitude, but it’s
part of the culture at Marriott.”
A similar way of thinking can be
found at UPS, where the concept
of “constructive dissatisfaction,”
coined by founder Jim Casey, permeates
the organization. Chairman
and CEO Mike Eskew regularly closets
his leadership team with inventors,
visionaries and academics for
conversations about game-changing
ideas and possible futures. He
actively seeks out such people as
a way to challenge the company’s
thinking about its business model,
corporate governance, use of technology
and more.
By taking these actions, a leader
can put in motion the powerful
mindset of continuous renewal so
it becomes a self-sustaining engine
for innovation and better ideas.
Performance anatomy is a powerful tool. But it requires the steady
hand of leadership to function successfully in across a range of conditions,
from periods of prosperity to those of turbulence in the industry or
economy. For guidance in this task, leaders must look to the steadying
influence of a company’s long-held values. UPS’s Eskew sums up their
importance: “Looking down the road 20 years from now, I think our#p#分页标题#e#
strategies will be different and the environment will be quicker, but our
values will be the same.”
When senior leaders, guided by core values, create, shape and change the five
mindsets that constitute a performance anatomy—and that ultimately underpin
high performance—they help an organization establish the practices that lead
to superior business results. An important first step on that path is to master
the critical leadership actions that develop and encourage those mindsets.About the authors
Robert J. Thomas is the executive
director of the Accenture Institute for
High Performance Business in Wellesley,
Massachusetts. Dr. Thomas is also
a partner in the Accenture Human
Performance service line and a leading
authority on leadership and transformational
change. He is a frequent
contributor to Outlook, and his ideas on
human capital development have also
appeared in Harvard Business Review,
Sloan Management Review and The
Wall Street Journal. His book Geeks and
Geezers, which he cowrote with
Warren Bennis, was one of the bestselling
business books of 2002.
[email protected]
Fred Harburg is a managing partner
with Third-River Consulting. He has held
numerous international leadership roles
and worked with several premier Fortune
指导英国MBA论文100 companies. He is also a member of
the editorial advisory board for Chief
Learning Officer, a magazine that includes
his bimonthly column on strategy.
[email protected]
Ana Dutra is the managing partner of
the Accenture Organization Strategy
group. She has spent more than 15 years
in management consulting working with
Fortune 1000 clients across multiple
industries. Recently, Ms. Dutra oversaw
Accenture’s acquisition of Hagberg
Consulting Group, a strategic consulting
company specializing in the assessment
of organizational culture and its alignment
with corporate strategy. Ms. Dutra
is based in Chicago.
[email protected]
Outlook is published by Accenture.
© 2007 Accenture.
All rights reserved.
The views and opinions in this article should
not be viewed as professional advice with
respect to your business.
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High Performance Delivered
are trademarks of Accenture.
The use herein of trademarks that may
be owned by others is not an assertion of
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nor intended to imply an association between
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For more information about Accenture,
please visit www.accenture.com
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