“The best-performing companies worry less about performance and more about their
organizational capabilities” (Bititci, 2015).
Bititci makes about organizations and their capabilities and performance. The way I
understand his point, is that a company's performance is based on their skills and workplace
culture, which makes up an organization's capabilities.
While researching this topic, I came across an article that reinforced this point for me, and it
claimed that "Corporate culture drives innovation, employee development, and retention,
ultimately driving the organization towards its goals... Employees’ overall ratings of their
company’s qualities — such as collaboration, work environment, and mission and value
alignment—are 20% higher at companies with strong cultures" (Kidd, 2020). If you have a
workplace culture that is hostile, then your employees are not going to be willing to
experiment with strategies that may increase productivity, and they will be doing the bare
minimum to get by, so that they don't draw any unwanted attention from their bosses or
coworkers. When their job merely becomes clocking in and out every day, then the outward
performance of the company will slip as well.
As far as the organizational cultures of both Company A and B, it seems to me that both have
some issues; however, Company A is in a better position to address their problems and move
forward. The main issue I see in Company A's culture is that they are behind the times. They
aren't relying on technology to make their operations like baggage handling, check-in, and
customer service more efficient. Additionally, they are relying on an outdated model of
compensation for their skilled employees. Modernizing their operations and compensation
packages as well as allocating extra funding towards optional training programs should be
enough to build a strong team at the center of their workforce, allowing them to increase their
performance.
Company B on the other hand seems to be entirely unorganized. Between the new President
and the IT Manager's investigation into ornithopters and questionable software partnerships,
leadership seems to be pulling Company B down numerous rabbit holes. On top of that, the
sales team is stagnant and operations are losing skilled technicians faster than they can train
new ones to replace them. To get Company B on track, leadership would have to be reigned in,
and made to focus on the decay presently within their company rather than being distracted by
futuristic fantasies that are just out of reach.
I absolutely agree with the statement,” The best-performing companies worry less about
performance and more about their organizational capabilities” (Bititci, 2015).” Organizational
capabilities are based on future performance which fuel the company. Large company’s stay
with the trends and move assets as they see necessary. This keeping them moving forward and
worrying less about performance and more toward future growth. e e
e e e e e e e e e e e Organizational culture is the collection of values, expectations, and practices that guide
and inform the actions of all team members. There are three ways culture directly affects
performance: productivity rises, business goals are supported, and business performance is
improved. Your company’s strong culture will help keep everyone moving as the same pace.
Employee’s will stay on track towards the overall goal. e
e e e Both company A and B have different cultures and organizational values. Company A
seems to be a more customer-based business while Company B is not as much. Company B’s
is more of a laid-back approach and focuses more on the internal policies and innovation for
the future. It seems that Company B is working to be more financial stable than cultural.
“The best-performing companies worry less about performance and more about their
organizational capabilities” (Bititci, 2015).
Hello everyone,
The above quote is something we need to evaluate this week as to whether or not we agree
with it. As I have studied both Company A and B Interview Notes, I can say that I do
personally agree with the above statement. This is because companies need to worry more
about their organizational capabilities. This is because as an organization we need to make
sure we have the best opportunities moving forward. For our performance to be top notch we
need to worry about our organizational capabilities. Because, if we are lacking in our
organizational capabilities then we will lag behind in performance as well.
Organizational culture affects performance in a lot of ways. The main way I will be focusing
on is the fact that if there is poor culture at work, then your organization will be less likely to
put their best foot forward. Which will lead to a lack of performance if you are not getting the
best out of your employees. We need the culture to be at the best possible so we can get the
most out of each of our employees.
I think Company A is a better example of organizational culture and capabilities. It seems
when reading through the interviews even though Company B has really excellent people, the
culture probably is lacking. Therefore, the better performing company is probably Company A
rather than Company B. Company A seems like it has the better culture and good capabilities,
but what they may lack in capabilities they make up for in culture, which makes me believe
they are the better overall company rather than Company B who seems to have more talent.
At its core, I agree with the statement “The best-performing companies worry less about
performance and more about their organizational capabilities” (Bititci, 2015). When it comes
to deciding what to “worry” about, I do agree it makes more sense for companies to focus less
on the numbers themselves, and more on strengthening capabilities, especially operational and
learning capabilities.
I do think that organizational capabilities and performance are intrinsically linked, which
perhaps isn’t captured fully in this quote. In our textbook, I think Figure 8.1 puts it better;
“Organisational capabilities and culture determine how people interact with processes that
deliver performance” (Bititci, 2015, pp. 143). There is a cause-and-effect relationship between
culture, organizational capabilities, and performance. In the prompt’s example, a participative
workplace means that employees are engaged and encouraged to share and pursue ideas. This
type of culture creates a strong learning capability, which means that companies are able to
leverage this employee knowledge and apply it, ultimately increasing performance measures.
So, by strengthening culture and capabilities, companies should see a corresponding increase
in performance too.
Company A’s organizational culture is lacking, as evidenced by losing 15% of their
employees last year, minimal investment in training, development, and advancement, and
difficulties in keeping up their compensation levels. Because of these, employees do not feel
valued, and are leaving for better opportunities. Looking at capabilities, we see that Company
A has outdated technology, and instead has twice as many baggage handlers, check-in
attendants, and customer service specialists as they really need, resulting in large personnel
costs. While Company A is doing well financially, with 19% of the market, all-time high
revenues, and excellent customer satisfaction, it seems that their culture and capabilities might
actually be capping their output and performance. By remedying these issues, Company A
could have even greater financial and market success.
Company B does not have a cohesive organizational culture. The President and IT Manager
seem to be the ones spearheading new initiatives, like the new partnership with the software
company. They are embracing innovation and seem really excited about the company’s future,
even if the President’s ideas are a bit extreme. However, they aren’t effectively
communicating their vision or gaining employee buy-in, as the sales team is “complacent”
with the status quo, the operations and maintenance crew has experienced substantial turnover,
and there is not adequate transfer of knowledge from those who are most experienced, who
will be retiring in the near future. Furthermore, Company B uses an outside HR provider, and
does not appear to have any formalized training, development, or advancement plans. The lack
of a unified and energized culture is limiting Company B’s operational, learning, and dynamic
capabilities, as on-the-ground employees are not motivated to explore solutions or adapt to
new ways of doing things. Subsequently, Company B’s financial performance is not very
good, with a 5% decline in seat occupancy over the last two quarters and relatively flat volume.
I do not agree with the opening statement. I think companies need to have a holistic approach
to this problem. Focusing too much on just organizational capabilities has the opportunity of
producing a siloed effect. Organizations that think only in terms of departments or specific
functions do not perform as well as organizations where they think of themselves (Bititci,
2015). e
Organizational culture affects capability of a company by enabling behaviors in the company
that lead them to be successful. As mentioned in textbook, arriving at a mature place where a
company is performant requires several iterations of a maturity lifecycle, where a huge part of
the cycle is learning at different levels and applying lessons learned to become better.
The first step is for companies to understand that principles and ideas are not set in stone and
that they can learn something new from how things have been done previously. An example of
this is my current company, where I am witnessing firsthand that our organization is starting to
learn how to learn and apply those lessons so firstly, we don’t do the same mistakes and
secondly so that we do things differently to see different results. We are learning that doing
things the same way repeatedly is giving us the same results. Our leaders are starting to realize
that we need to understand how to break from this groupthink cycle to be able to start moving.
After reading the memos of Company A and B I think both companies need to reach another
level of maturity. Company A leaders need to grow in their operational and dynamic
capabilities. Company A is seeing the results of their decisions from years ago, like in 2018
how they “overdid treats for their customers” and this affected their bottom line, they course
corrected, but this is a prime example of how not having insights into the financial impact of
their decisions can affect their bottom line. Furthermore, they are aware of their competitors in
the space and what they are doing, they are aware that they are losing customers to their
pricing strategy, and nothing is indicating that they are learning and changing course.
Company B also needs to focus on their operational capability with the resources that they
have on hand. They need to understand that there are big problems that can become
showstoppers for them if they are not acted upon soon, like their aircraft becoming inoperable
if their maintenance crews do not get the training and certification to continue doing their jobs
according to regulation. Company B leadership needs to understand all the issues they have
and prioritize accordingly based on the effect these issues can have on their bottom line. e "The
best-performing companies worry less about performance and more about their organizational
capabilities" (Bititci, 2015).
To an extent, this can be true. I believe that any TRULY successful company needs to move
their focus from strictly looking at numbers to looking at areas such as employee satisfaction,
customer satisfaction, learning capabilities, innovation, and operations. Income, sales, and
product numbers are not the only thing that dictate the success of a business. When we look at
the informational spread sheets that are given to us as students to evaluate areas such as
employee satisfaction and business environment, we are not just given numbers. A company
can easily fail due to high turnover rates, bad customer service, legal issues, or bad marketing
to just list a few examples.
Culture, capabilities, and performance are interconnected in such a way that if one area is non
substantive than other areas will fail. In past courses concepts such as innovation we evaluated
and how companies approached innovation often was a significant sign of future failure or
success. Environments that did not encourage creativity and idea sharing were often those who
saw less progress. A comparison from a class that comes to mind was the company 3M versus
automobile manufacturers. 3M has an openly innovative environment for their employees, and
this has been what has led to inventions such as post-it notes! Whereas most automobile
manufacturers have a similar hierarchy which includes one person from each department
(technology, design, manufacturing, etc.) and a singular project manager. These companies
come up with incremental innovations that are small changes rather than brand new products.
These companies tend to have much different cultures.
Company A has a fairly good performance record with educated employees that receive
multiple training opportunities. Their turnover rate is twelve percent which is lower than the
area average (fifteen percent) as seen in the other company’s fact sheet. There are multiple
trainings offered and they are updated regularly. Customer return rate is high and new
customer influx is at twenty-two percent. Their customer service and safety rating area above
average. This indicates a cohesive culture. They have also been in business since 1981,
showing consistency in growth which is a win for numbers. Customers and employees are
satisfied which means that their internal and external business environments are at least decent.
Company B has a higher turnover rate among their employees and communicate having
difficulty maintaining compensation rises. They also only offer two trainings for their
employees meaning that they do not value continued education for employee and customer
satisfaction and safety. Their safety rating is low and customer service is lacking. Customers
have complained about the customer service and cleanliness of the airline, two very important
areas in today’s world. The new president of the company has expressed a desire to be an
innovator instead of a follower. However, the company’s current culture is not that that
inspires or rewards innovation. This points to failure more so than numbers.
Reviewing the potential acquisition of Company, A and Company B the cultures are
immeasurably dissimilar. I do agree with the statement that “The best performing companies
worry less about performance and more about their organizational capabilities” (Bititci, 2015).
The focus on just attainment of numbers and the exclusivity to be the best, there is a
consciousness that the organization may not reach their full potential. Organizational culture
can affect performance and capabilities in the workplace. An appreciated and respected
employee, when they are satisfied, remain engaged and are a positive reflection of the
company.
The business organization requires a streamlined teamwork collaboration of efficiency and
accountability, measured goals and deliverables are seen. Culture that is engaging and positive
obtains productivity and an increase in their capabilities. Performance is a requirement
towards the desired end result, whatever matrix is used. Management needs to embody an
emphasis on team capabilities and team culture – employees produce thoughts and ideas that
generate better performance. The expansion of philosophies of the company empowers
employees to bring forth their best efforts towards the greatest possible outcome.
The culture of Company A needs improvement. The company has a strong financial presence,
customers are fulfilled, and the company overall has internal / external issues. There is a gap in
the investment and training of employees and stifles the advancements of creativeness and
innovative thoughts and ideas. The company has lost 15% of their employees due to the pay
scale that is currently in place. There is no career development program for advancement,
customers are kept happy while employees suffer. Company A has a better overall
performance rating.
The culture of Company B does not face the tough issues. Company B does have a
collaborative culture system. The new president does not come with aviation knowledge or
background. Older employees will be retiring and there is not pathway to passing on of years
of knowledge. The HR problems / issues are not resolved in house, they are resolved by an
outside contractor, and therefore no real papabile support for the employees.
Bititci, U.S. (2015) Managing Business Performance. Wiley professional. Reference & Trade
(Wiley K&L)
https://wileyplus.vitalsource.com/books/9781119025696.
Bititci, U. S. (2015). Managing business performance: The science and the art. Wiley.
Bititci, U. S. (2015). Managing Business Performance. Wiley Professional, Reference &
Trade (Wiley K&L). https://wileyplus.vitalsource.com/books/9781119025696
Kidd, D. (2020, July 1). How Culture Impacts Performance. Raine Digital.
