Have your parameters for identifying a high-performing or successful organization changed
over the course? Why or why not?
I enjoyed learning about the different parameters and characteristics of high-performing and
successful organizations throughout this course. I personally knew that the social aspect of an
organization was super important but it was insightful to read about the research that has been
done in that area in our textbooks. Even so, I have come across many companies that are stuck
in the past and continue to not prioritize their culture even though it's essential for their long-
term success. As technology continues to progress and adapt over time, it will be interesting to
see what the future brings in regards to process improvement, automation, and business
strategies. Now more than ever do businesses need to have strategies to be able to pivot and
adapt in an ever-changing environment. What other technologies will emerge that threaten to
wipe-out an old way of doing things?
As a leader, what are some performance factors and future trends you will consider for
developing a high-performing team and organization?
As a leader I will always be sure to stress the importance of culture, innovation, and
communication at whatever organization that I end up working for. I think a leader can be
successful by consistently evaluating and taking pulse on their leadership capability, culture,
organizational structure, performance management, learning capability, competitors, and
external environment. In the future I see the importance of innovation increasing even more
than it is now as technology continues to advance and the need for constant process
improvements and faster performance increases with it. I wonder if it will ever come to a head,
will we have a period where technology advancement slows down?
Personally, I also would like to continue to develop my creative leadership skills and
constantly seek feedback to be sure I am not becoming too reactive. I'd like to be a thoughtful,
inspiring, and innovative leader who is able to balance business and people priorities
effortlessly.
This year was a pleasure and I am glad I got the opportunity to read each of your discussions. I
wish you all continued success and reaching goals you wish to achieve. My parameters for
measuring a successful organization have definitely changed over the semester. The concept
of a balanced scorecard was never something I considered or knew about prior to this course.
The balanced scorecard allowed for so many opportunities to identify key performance
indicators within an organization and capacities necessary to succeed. An organization that
has the financial tolerance, desire to grow their current market, and innovate within were all
key indicators of their success. My initial train of thought when measuring the success of an
organization was by far more basic. The material provided throughout this course made my
thought process consider deeper characteristics of an organization. These components factored
into the internal and external components of the organization, and the company's sensitivity to
unplanned events that can cause a disruption in their daily activities.
As a leader, you must consider communication, internal capacity to handle change, employee
retention and continued education, and constantly challenge the process to innovate in the
workplace. To create a high-performance team, managers should encourage a strong focus on
team communication to ensure improvements in motivation, productivity, and profitability.
Equally, managers must prioritize the dissemination of information to their direct reports. This
includes constantly considering employee feedback and opinions on a new process or policy.
Being open and honest about strengths and limitations in workplace behaviours is one way to
help generate trust between team members. Understanding our own personality traits can help
us to learn why we behave in a certain way. It can also identify how we interact with people
and whether we need to consider making changes to our behaviour. A team that offers
communication and trust across all levels offers the capacity to innovate and focus on the
vision of the organization. These are all key to understanding how to lead. Measuring the
growth of an organization that is considered high-performing will focus on employee retention
rate, customer return rate, the gross profit margin which shows a company can turn a profit,
and the market share and ranking an organization holds.
In my Module One post, I said that I think organizational success is not only financial, but also
hinges on making the world a better place. There are many faucets to this, including employee
satisfaction, customer satisfaction, environmental sustainability, and giving back to those less
fortunate. Over this course, my parameters for identifying a high-performing, successful
organization haven’t changed much! The tools and resources we have explored in this course
have reinforced my perspective, as they’ve provided a codified version of what I was
originally thinking. For example, the four perspectives of the Balanced Scorecard align almost
exactly with what I said in my initial post! Additionally, the resource on how sustainability
integrates with each of the Balanced Scorecard perspectives really resonated with me as well.
I think that while we didn’t talk too much about other aspects of corporate social
responsibility, I have a better understanding of the ways that all of these elements work
together to contribute to a more holistic view of success.
As a leader, I think one factor and trend I’d consider for developing a high-performing team
and organization is organizational culture. Through the scenario in this class, we were able to
grapple with the impact of organizational culture on all of the other elements – financial,
customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. Organizations in which employees
genuinely enjoy their job and feel valued are more likely to have better financial outputs,
better customer interactions, more innovative and efficient processes, and more motivation to
learn and grow. I really feel that culture is the number one factor in overall success and health
of a company, and leaders are directly responsible for creating and influencing it through their
words and actions.
A high-performance organization's criteria have evolved throughout time. At first, the main
parameters I used as a yardstick for success were financial performance, market command and
the general development of the firm. I have learned a lot about running a company over the
course of this semester and over the period of time. For example, I believe that leadership is
now a critical factor. Leadership is essential to guiding an organization's resources toward
improved efficiency and success as a manager (Sarros, 2020). Effective leaders have a clear
vision, engage their workforce, and guide the company toward its objectives. There is a lot that
executives can do for their company's success if they know what they are doing. As a result of
a dearth of experienced CEOs in both established and growing economies, there is a scarcity
of leadership. Traditional leadership approaches, such as command and control, have proven
outmoded in today's fast-paced world. Whoever is in charge of setting a strategy, setting a
timetable and allocating resources is most successful in his or her position.
e e e e e e e e e e I have also realized that the organizational structure and design is a critical aspect of its
success because it defines the manner in which decisions and operations are undertaken. A
well-designed organizational structure may aid a company in achieving its strategic
objectives. A company's strategy and competitive advantages must be closely aligned with the
interaction of its essential elements: structure, individual talents, roles, and teamwork
(Roberts, 2017). The design of an organization necessitates compromise. A company's most
important values should be highlighted in a well-designed organizational structure. It is
difficult to accommodate all dimensions evenly in the actual world. Businesses may be
organized by regions rather than channels if a company's emphasis is on long-term success in
major areas. Therefore, its leaders would have to take extra care to make sure these channels
received enough support despite the fact that they were not the primary axis of the busin
Yes, it has changed. I thought revenue was the determining factor of how successful an
organization becomes. However, revenue does not say anything about the foundation of the
company. Other determining factors measure a company’s success, like employees’
satisfaction and customers satisfaction. Employees are significant assets to the company.
Employees drive the company towards the direction of the company’s vision and expectations.
If employees are provided with the skills and knowledge, they become confident during their
job. Happy employees will lead to more satisfied customers, and a company needs them both.
Customer satisfaction is important, but customer relationships are just as meaningful.
Customer relationships say a lot about the company; it shows customers’ trust and loyalty.
Measuring organization success is essential because every company needs to know how well
they perform.
As a leader, it would be employee performance. Employees play an essential role and are
critical to the company. How well an employee executes their tasks and how effective they are
in their job is vital. Employees are an investment to the company, and must show job
efficiency. A yearly performance review is an effective tool to use for improving
performance. e
In my first post from week 1 the parameters that I stated beside finance that were needed for a
high performing successful organization were appropriate organization structures, a healthy
work environment, and a strong culture. Ten weeks later, after developing and learning what it
takes for an organization to measure its success, challenges, and its resources, I still believe
that these parameters will always be necessary for an organization to be successful. In this
course we covered business environments, internal and external factors that can affect the
organization's performance, how businesses are influenced by their environment and how
these factors decide how day to day circumstances impact an organization. These factors point
out an organization's strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities and without knowing
these factors an organization will not know where they stand and how to make improvements
to meet their goals and objectives. The parameters I mentioned in my first post fall into these
business environment factors and I believe that they can affect an organization’s performance.
Overall, they determine the success of an organization.
As a leader I would want to incorporate balanced scorecards and kpis to assist me in creating a
high performing team and organization as well as SMART goals. SMART goals to help me
plan and achieve goals as well as a guide in goal setting. Scorecards to collect performance
information and kpis to measure overall performance and success. Also, scorecards include
four important components that I believe determine the success of an organization or team.
When I started this course, I did not have a clear understanding of these two topics, so I had an
open mind, and I was just focusing on learning. Even though I had my opinions, I wanted an
academic knowledge to have a more robust opinion about it. Saying that, I would not say it
changed, I learned that there are multiple variables that have an effect in an organization
success. In week one I defined personal success was the daily satisfaction of accomplishment
and happiness. In a personal stand of point it is a good motto, but for an organization I would
not choose that way of thinking. e
As a future leader I would define a strategic plan using SMART goal, KPIs (Key Performance
Indicators), and scorecard. I would use SMART to plan goals and achieve them, KPIs to
monitor the behavior of these goals and the scorecard to see how well the organization is doing
on the most important components. The combination of these three tools with a diverse high
performing team would be the main factors, not the only ones, I will use to measure the
success of my organization.
I talked about gauging the success of a company by their longevity. While I haven't changed
my mind about the importance of thinking in the long run for a company, I do think my
understanding of a company's success has been reinforced primarily through our last
discussion about organizational capacity. Focusing on organizational capacity as a way for a
company to strengthen their operations in the short and long run seems to me to be a better
way to quantify success. Thinking in the long term as I was framing it in week 1 is vague
enough to be difficult to act on, and I think that if a company focuses on developing their
organizational capacities for the express purpose of becoming a more robust operation in the
future, then that company will be much more able to form actionable plans that will help them
reach this lofty goal of being a long lasting, sustainable company. Based on where I was in
week 1 and where my thinking is now, it follows that as a leader, I would be looking for
analytical people to be a part of my team. I would want people that could not only get the job
done, whatever it may be, but also notice and change any aspects of our operational processes
that may be inefficient that I as a manager wouldn't notice due to not working hands on.
Having these diagnostically capable team members would help make the company as a whole
better at doing its job, increasing its organizational capacity and making it more stable in the
long term.
We have made it to the last week of the semester! I am excited to be able to apply what I
have learned in this class to my current job. I have to say that the parameters for identifying
and realizing a highly successful organization. This course has changed my perspective on the
aspects on how an organization is successful. Being able to identify the traits in an
organization allows for more in-depth reasons and qualities on how they got to a certain point.
At the beginning of the course, I wasn’t to informed on how to identify an organization, now I
am able to identify and see the reasons for its success. Being a leader allows for the ability to
change and influence employees or organizations into change that can be beneficial to the
organization. developing a high-performing team starts with the way the leader presents
themselves and how well they can guide their employees into thinking what steps are next. By
starting this trend, the team will create new ideas and become leaders within the group. Some
performance factors that go into the team are based on the teamwork, timeframe, and the
amount of work needing to be done. Developing a plan will also help the team stay on track
and have a guide to where the organization will go.
Yes, I would say that my stance on high-performing/successful companies has changed to a
degree. Back in Module One, the perception I had of a successful company stood heavily on a
company's positive impact on those both inside and outside of its organizational walls. To me,
combining this with a high-character culture, valuing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),
and triple bottom line aspects would most certainly show signs of a very successful
organization. As I navigated this course, I began to realize just how important the key
components of a Balanced Scorecard are to determining organizational success as well.
Examining and analysing the four components - Financial, Internal Processes,
Customer/Market, and Learning & Growth - I have found to be critical in measuring an
organization's success. These four components opened my eyes to just how complex the
evaluation process of a company's success can truly be.
As a leader, some performance factors I would consider are employee satisfaction and
retention, monthly revenues, and charitable giving. I believe if I can lead members of a team,
departments, and eventually an entire organization focused on these tenets, then this will result
in a well-balanced, highly-efficient organization from top to bottom. With these tenets in
mind, the future trends I would consider is environmental consciousness and technological
advancements. Technology is a part of nearly every industry in the business world, so it is
critical to be aware of technological trends across all industries to maximize success. Being an
environmentally conscious organization can pay dividends toward its overall impact on the
outside world, which is an aspect that I believe builds a health company culture and could lay
the groundwork for future company success. e e
My parameters have not changed as different industries view success and high-performing
differently. As far as the manufacturing industries, they will view their success as producing
more items in each time. While the tech industry views success as less attrition rate, keeping
more talent will result in profitability. The tech industry knows the value of keeping talent
compared to the manufacturing industries, where they can train someone as little as a day to do
a task and maybe pay them less. I have learned that when merging two companies, there has to
be similarities in culture for the company to thrive. As a leader, I see future trends as less
micromanaging and more unrestrained. This has shown that workers are less stressed and
more productive. They are also more comfortable expressing themselves and pitching ideas
that might overall help the company. Also, providing competitive wages to keep talent. With
the rise of the internet, people can easily find how much they should be getting paid. If they
see it is higher at another company, then they will leave. Work-life balance also plays a critical
factor in an employee's overall satisfaction. Gone are the days when people stay countless
hours at their jobs to get ahead. Now people want a position where they can separate
themselves from work without the pressure of knowing their jobs are at risk.
Looking back at my original module one discussion post, I would say that I do agree with what
I previously wrote but would increase and support those ideas with the things I learned in this
course. I focused on the idea of success as a company fulfilling its goals, values, and mission,
in a proper and effective way and I still agree with this thought, but I also think it is important
to focus this idea of success into the many individual pieces that make it up. I would work to
take a more analytical approach to identify success within organizations for specific aspects
and goals that it had set forth, and I think using this approach will allow me to understand the
overall success of an organization more deeply. I feel that the focus in this course on breaking
down overall components of companies and identifying strengths and weaknesses within them
was very helpful in showing me how important a more fine-tuned review can be. I think this
structure of analysis we worked with influenced this decision in adding on to my previous
determination of what success was and how it is measured. I appreciate the additional insight
gained from this course and understand that there is a plethora of ways to measure success
depending on a variety of factors which can all work to influence the measurement results. I
hope to continue learning and expanding my ways of thinking about success and analysing
performance in companies to help increase my understanding of companies and abilities in
working with them.
e e e Some performance factors and future trends I will focus on will include the measurement of
progress towards the given mission and vision statements as well as how adaptable a team or
organization can be. There is a major influence that measurement of progress can have in
maintaining a synchronized team and ensuring final delivery of any product or idea, which
makes it a key factor to pay attention to. I would work to use progress measurement in a
positive way to push the team or company to peak performance while rewarding and working
with them along the way to ensure the most streamlined process. I will also focus on how the
team is accepting any advancements in whatever field they are in and dealing with any
unforeseen events and obstacles to find the most adaptable environment possible. Given the
major changes that have affected all industries across the globe including pandemics, political
turmoil, and financial instability, a company or team must be able to work efficiently and
effectively regardless of outside factors to meet the needs of the company. If an individual for
example is very settled with one specific way of work and opposes other ones regardless of
higher efficiency, then that individual would not be an acceptable candidate for a team or
company looking to evolve and change. This company would look to work with as many
advancements as possible in a continuous cycle that would allow for competitive growth in its
field. I would work to put together the most dynamic team possible who is willing to work
through things differently and accept all advancements brought to them as the major
opportunities they could be to achieve a competitive advantage. Pursuing a team with these
two qualities among many others will provide an efficient and talented workforce that could
work to benefit any company or organization.
Have your parameters for identifying a high-performing or successful organization changed
over the course? Why or why not? MY thoughts have not change on the parameters of a high
performing or successful organization. The one thing that I can say is that it takes a lot of
commitment and time from the entire team. It should not just be on one person. Working on
the scenarios of both Company A, and Company B did factor in to me not changing my mind.
Company A was just more successful because they had everything in order. The biggest
impact on their success was their leaders and the communication they brought forth. This is
what will make a business successful. As for Company B, they did not have all of this in line.
They had people that would have to work in other areas that they were not comfortable in.
They also did not have a good vision for the company. If they had all of this in order, they
would have been more successful. Strong leaders in a company must go above and beyond to
ensure they are going to take-off in the market. If they want to take off, they need to ensure
they are getting everything done that is needed. Company B needs to focus on their culture as
it needs some adjusting. Once these adjustments have been made, they should see some
overall changes for the best.
As a leader, what are some performance factors and future trends you will consider for
developing a high-performing team and organization? As a leader, I think a couple of factors
that will impact success would have to be goals, communication, and decision making. When
a goal is set, this tests how strong the team will be. You set a goal, a timeline, and you know
what you must do to achieve it. Communication is the key to success. If there is no
communication within the team, there needs to be some work done in ensuring they get there.
I think that a company should focus on their mission/vision as well when trying to achieve
high-performing areas. The areas in which they are weak in, they should focus on those. The
ones that they have no issues in, try not to change. Again, it takes the entire team to get it done.
Each single one of them and their opinions matter.
Have your parameters for identifying a high-performing or successful organization changed
over the course? No, my answer to this question has not changed over this course. Everyone is
going have different parameters on have they identify successful organizations. So, people
identify success as money and other a saving the environment. This all depends on the person.
I personally think happiness and family is the top of my parameters no matter what I am doing
in life. If I am not happy it does not matter how successful or high-performing an organization
is.
As a leader, what are some performance factors and future trends you will consider for
developing a high-performing team and organization? This is a great question as I am about to
start my transition from military life to civilian life in the next year. My goal, as a future
civilian in a leadership role, is to take the positive aspect of the military and apply it to my
civilian career. I am big on recognition for a job well done. To me, that goes a long way with
employees. Also, I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated. You get more
bees with honey and vinegar. That meaning, people will work harder for you if you treat them
good and with respect than being a mean leader. A future trend my family has been dealing
with is working from home options. Over the past couple years my wife and I have been given
freedom to work from home. I feel just as much, if not more, work gets done when this is an
option. Granted, I am not a fan of working from home but having that options seems to keep
people happier.
In my first post, I discussed my thoughts about Google being a successful organization due to
its ability to lead the market in innovation and being conscious of efforts or investments that
are not successful and having the courage to pivot to a different venture.
As we progressed through this course, it became clear to me that not only my two previous
points are what makes a high-performing company, but so much more. The innovation bit and
changing direction when needed can roughly be interpreted as an organization’s learning
capabilities. I think we all knew deep down that learning from past experiences and
observations of the environment around us makes us successful, but having that notion
validated was impactful. We have heard of many companies who failed to learn from their
experiences and were stuck in the same way they did things; Kodak or Blackberry, for
example, were good companies during their height. Still, they also make good examples of
how an organization’s lack of learning capability can be the last nail in the coffin.
In my software engineering career, I will soon become a team leader. In my recent experience
through my job and this course, I have learned that we cannot let perfect be the enemy of the
good; there is a balance that happens between being able to start chipping away at a problem
with limited information vs. waiting to learn all the information needed at the beginning and
having to rush for a solution towards the end. Having the ability to determine that balance is
what makes a high-performing team and organization. The second most important thing that I
am walking away with is the practice of setting up time aside to let innovation happen.
“Necessity is the mother of all inventions” is an adage but still relevant to our world. I want to
encourage my team members to set time aside every week away from company work and
think about those problems they currently face that do not have an easy solution and how to
overcome that. Lastly, allowing members of the organization to learn any topics outside of
their job function. Instigating this habit helps tremendously with diversity in thought, which is
where innovation lives and thrives.
In conclusion, high-performing teams and organizations must learn from their past
experiences, from their surroundings by watching competitors in the business environment,
and from within themselves by listening to each other’s diverse thoughts. e
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