Performance Culture – What’s it all about and did you notice it

Organisation culture is the shared set of values, beliefs and motives that guide behaviour in an organisation, the leaders demonstrate the behaviors guided by the values, beliefs and motives at all times and over a period of time the culture of the organisation is built . Due to the change in market and business context if there is a need to change the values ,motives and beliefs then there is a need to change the behaviors demonstrated and thereby the cultures. Organisation cultures evolve over a period of time due to economic, social and business contexts, although it may not be drastically different however at times it can be significantly different to ensure sustainability. One of the top thought leaders on culture, Dr. Edgar Schein, said in one of the interviews, “Culture is what a group learns as its way of surviving and both getting along internally and solving its problems externally. What’s usually missing is understanding how the external environment influences culture.”

A performance culture is an attribute of the Organisational culture which implies the performance orientation across the organisation for sustained business deliverables. It’s a term which is used often by the CXO’s to address their teams and in various conversations with stakeholders to signify better performance orientation .Performance culture is much broader than mere performance orientations lets reflect on what are the attributes of it and how is it visible to everyone ,it’s important we reflect on visibility because there are lot of visible and invisible elements of culture and unlike the physical attributes of culture which are readily visible ,its difficult to notice the invisible elements of culture and hence have reflected on the attributes and the possible visible resultant elements of performance culture .The attributes of a Performance Culture are:

ü A high level of Accountability: The focus of the organisation is on delivering to its promises to stakeholders.

ü Customer Centricity is at the core of all decisions: Every move the organisation makes is with the customer needs in mind and how to serve the customer better.

ü Innovation Oriented: Creating continuous disruptions in the market place and how to innovate to stay ahead of the curve with respect to competition.

ü A Highly Agile Mind set: Adaptive to change in the ways of doing business and to adapt to the change of the market place.

In the world of business it’s the results which matter and it’s important to note the resultant impact that gets created due to the performance culture in an organisation which can be easily observed. Also to drive any culture its important to focus on the visible elements of it and its often very difficult to identify the visible elements which are not physical in nature.A high performance culture is there if :

? The organisation is able to attract the best. The best in the industry would want to work in it.

? There is  High level of pride in the organisation amongst its employees and thereby strong level of engagement.

? The organisation is able to continuously beat the competition and stay ahead of the curve in market share and profitability.

? All stakeholders and partners in the business value chain of the organisation want to associate and partner with the organisation.