OSP - Performance Culture

Performance Culture

Performance Culture Defined

A performance culture, rather than evolving over time in a spontaneous manner, is consciously planned and developed through deliberate actions to maximize productivity. In a performance culture, anything that stands as a barrier to meeting or exceeding performance expectations is either eliminated or minimized.

Senior management provides the leadership needed to align every process, system and resource in order to maximize productivity. Every effort is made to fill each position with an employee who shares the desire to dramatically improve productivity and quality, reduce costs and boost citizen satisfaction. High performing employees gain great satisfaction from opportunities to continuously improve results. A performance culture is built around a shared desire to exceed expectations and to achieve remarkable results.

A New Model for State Government

Powerful and dynamic forces of change sweep over our state with growing frequency and magnitude, changing North Carolina as we have known it. For example:

Changes in North Carolina	Impact on State Government
Technological changes once requiring years to develop are now taking place in a matter of months.	Technological changes influence the expectations citizens have for state government.
Traditional manufacturing jobs are moving out of North Carolina and knowledge/skill based Industries are moving into the state.	The education system must respond by developing a workforce that matches the new manpower needs of business and industry.
Population growth threatens to strain water and energy resources.	The state must find effective ways to anticipate demand and consumption of natural and energy resources.
Significant demographic changes are changing the face of North Carolina.	Demographic changes, such as an aging population, will drive dramatic increases in demand for state government services.
North Carolina's aging work force will yield a shortage of skilled workers needed to staff the needs of business and government.	State government will find it more difficult to recruit and retain a high-performance workforce.

The confluence of technological, social and economic change increases the urgency for North Carolina state government to move to a new operational model, a model that is more responsive to rapid change, more fluid and adaptable.

In order to effectively carry out our charge to maintain or improve the lifestyles of our citizens, state government must anticipate and adjust quickly to change. Every employee in state government must be empowered to deliver quality services — better, faster and cheaper.

In order for state government to meet the changing needs of its citizens, it will be necessary to move past the "business as usual" mentality and launch an innovative effort to deliver quality results to North Carolina's citizens — better, faster, and cheaper. In the process, state government must become more transparent and accountable for delivering those results. Meeting these challenges is completely achievable by building a high-performance culture in North Carolina state government.

A Performance Culture — A Competitive Strategy for Success

Most everyone knows that North Carolina competes in the world marketplace to attract and retain business and industry. State government's role in that competition may not be as obvious to citizens or employees. In reality, state government is routinely involved in the competition with other states or in world markets for new business and industry. Success in that competition means new jobs and higher pay for North Carolinians . How effective state government is in responding to that competition may have a lot to do with whether we add or lose jobs.

Although state employees may not be aware of a link between their job performance and North Carolina 's success in attracting and retaining business and industry, state government's ability to compete effectively is linked to employee productivity. Since productivity is related to the quality of employees, state government must be successful in attracting and retaining top performing employees.

Once top talent is acquired, we must provide a work environment that supports productivity. Every workplace has a culture, and most managers readily agree that culture plays an important role in managing productivity. Despite that knowledge, state government devotes little time or attention to the impact that work culture has on productivity. In order to maximize productivity, we must move away from a "that's the way we do business around here" mentality and be more intentional about maintaining a work environment that supports individual success and productivity.

Everyone wins in a true performance culture.

Citizens win because government provides quality services at lower costs. Citizens come to expect things such as better highways, quality education, clean air and water, and improved healthcare.
State agencies and universities benefit because they are laser-focused on meeting specific performance goals and they routinely meet or exceed stakeholder expectations. Improved performance leads to remarkable results.
Employees receive benefit from the opportunity to perform meaningful work in an environment that supports their personal success. In a performance culture, people are recognized for their achievements.

You might think that an organizational focus on productivity would be about driving people to work harder. Actually, the vision for generating remarkable results has little to do with working harder, but has to do with working more effectively. Creativity, innovation and results are of peak value.

If you would like to assess how your work unit (agency, division, or work unit) measures up against a performance culture click here.

If you would like to read more about the essential ingredients of a performance culture, read on.

Building a Performance Culture

Plan / Desire / Talent A performance culture doesn't just happen; it is built intentionally. It requires planning, attention to detail and hard work. Building a performance culture requires three primary ingredients: a desire to excel, a plan to move forward, and the human talent to make it happen.

Desire to excel

The very first step in building a performance culture for an organization is to commit to a philosophy that embraces innovation to drive performance improvement with the intention of producing remarkable results. A desire to achieve remarkable results is the foundation for building a performance culture. The passion for excellence creates energy. It is an exciting place to be. Once the foundation is in place, the culture grows by taking specific actions to ensure processes, systems and resources are aligned to get desired results. Everything about the organization must be focused on improving performance, increasing outputs and getting results.

Establishing a business plan:

Every successful farmer plants his crop with the harvest in mind. He imagines the harvest before the first seed is ever planted. Once the farmer has the harvest in his mind; he lays the plans for making the harvest a reality. In similar fashion, each state agency, each manager, each employee must define success clearly and in ways that allow results to be measured. Research documents the fact that productivity increases where performance expectations are expressed in clear and measurable terms. This makes it possible to determine if expectations were met or were exceeded and by how much.

It is logical to ask where clear and measurable performance expectations originate. A performance culture gets its direction from a strategic planning process that defines performance expectations at the very top of the. Strategic planning produces:

A well-defined mission and vision statement that clearly describes the organization's desired future state. That desired future state must be quantified and qualified so that everyone, without doubt, knows what the target is. An effective mission and vision statement builds passion for the business and encourages employees to perform at their best.
Key business objectives that determine precisely what needs to happen in order to achieve success in reaching its desired destination. Business objectives are clarified by specific metrics that define success in measurable terms. Everything that is important to achieving the mission is measured so that progress toward meeting business objectives is continuously monitored. The objectives are communicated throughout the organization; they don't just hang on the wall someplace or take up space in a drawer.
Performance objectives that assign responsibility for achieving the key business objectives. Management sorts the tasks which then cascade through the organization to the various divisions and work groups and from there, to employees. Once again, measures that define performance expectations are in place to evaluate the performance results.
A plan for resource allocation: In the planning process, the organization decides what resources will be needed to meet key business objectives and it decides how existing resources will be allocated in order to reach key business objectives. This same idea applies to individual employees.

If you would like to explore Strategic Planning in more detail, click here.

Workforce plan

The third critical ingredient in reaching the organization's key business objectives is being successful at building and sustaining a workforce that possesses the talent and the commitment necessary to achieve remarkable results. In order to be successful in this task, the organization must be able to staff, motivate, develop and retain a workforce equipped for that task. Remarkable results are achieved by placing high-performing people in each job. We are not talking about having a full compliment of ordinary employees, but a full compliment of highly productive employees.

If you would like to know more about Workforce Planning click here.

Performance Culture Self Assessment

Performance Culture Self Assessment Analysis

a performance culture is consciously planned & deliberately developed.