Improving organizational

performance
 A “dysfunctional culture” undermines many organizations. 
 In order to transform your company, focus on managing, improving and
controlling your culture.
 Having a stronger culture matters more to your competitive advantage than a
change in industry or geography or a misplaced emphasis on speed and disruption.
 Choose a “recipe” for transformation that suits your strategy and culture.
 To build a strong culture and sustained “acceleration,” use a META – “Mobilize,
Execute and Transform with Agility” – framework for change.  
 Mobilize in pursuit of clear goals aligned with your purpose: to meet customers’
needs.
 Execute by setting one or two main priorities derived from your purpose.
 Transform through experimentation, risk taking and creativity.
 Demonstrate agility by instilling a cultural acceptance of change and by
improving your ability to see what’s coming.
 As a leader, learn to use “systems thinking” and to take a broad, creative view of
both problems and opportunities.

Summary
Culture at the Core

Across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States, former leading companies,
including British Petroleum, the BBC, Volkswagen and Lehman Brothers, all faltered for
similar reasons: flawed cultures that let them stray off course. In shielding their cultures
from the realities of the “hard science” of organizational behavior, the companies’
leaders shortchanged themselves. Instead of making such mistakes, realize that “the soft
stuff” of behavior management “is really the hard stuff” and incorporate that science
into their leadership practices. When you try to change your culture, the data will “set
you free.”

“Moving organizational behavior into the realm of science is the core mission of this
book. We prefer facts over fiction. We think HR…needs less PowerPoint and more
Excel.”
Everything in the world has accelerated over the past decades. The adoption of
technological advances, how quickly people walk and even the growth rate of chickens
has gotten faster. But too much speed leads to blindness. To protect your company,
watch for early signs of looming disruption. It can take years and sometimes decades for
an industry to upend completely. Successful firms focus first on their culture. Then they
look beyond the horizon to make plans and accelerate for the future in a structured,
measured way.

Mission and Purpose

Companies that increase their revenue year after year – not by acquiring other firms,
not by reducing profits and not through any form of corporate welfare – are called
“superaccelerators.” In the Financial Times 500, a list of the world’s most valuable
companies, 23 qualify as superaccelerators. These companies don’t prioritize better
shareholder returns. Instead, they pursue long-term investor value by creating strategies
and setting goals that are aligned to their mission and purpose. Since 2010,
superaccelerators have financially outperformed comparable companies by more than
triple, with market value growth that’s four times greater than average.

Accelerate According to “META”

To develop your organization’s superaccelerator capabilities, build competence in each

of the four components of the META framework for growth. Balance these four factors
to build an accelerating, sustainable business:

1. “Mobilize” – Define your company’s values and purpose around what your
customers want. Make your purpose clear and succinct, communicate it, and rally
everyone around it. Welcome uncertainty as a growth opportunity. As a leader,
devote your time to examining scenarios and brainstorming ideas. Softbank CEO
Masayoshi Son advises, “Look in the future, and think backward.” To mobilize,
develop a structured decision-making process that recognizes your decision-
makers’ biases and emboldens your organization to act on incomplete but tested
information.
2. “Execute” – Set a clear priority or two; then marshal your resources behind
those goals. Eliminate bureaucracy. Streamline operations. Reward performance.
Execute by thinking about the main competencies you’ll need to realize your firm’s
vision – the skills your rivals lack and can’t easily duplicate. Consider your strategic
options and perform a candid evaluation of your ability to execute them. Revisit
your strategy frequently, and develop other choices you could deploy as conditions
change.
3. “Transform” – Experiment. Give your people incentives to take risks.
Encourage creativity and discourage herd thinking. Root out complacency.
Encourage people to collaborate and share information. Transform your company
by pursuing a variety of short- and long-term bets. Assess your strategies
constantly; eliminate failing ventures. Fail fast so you can divert resources to
promising projects quickly. Learn to spot dangers and openings sooner than your
rivals. Act on your insights.
 4. “Agility” – Instill cultural acceptance of change by selecting change-oriented
leaders and employees. Increase your agility by predicting your rivals’ actions
and responses to change. Build agility as a skill; it improves all the elements of
META. Foster an ability to bounce back from setbacks. Develop a learning culture
and become more adaptable. Change at the pace of new conditions. Build resilience
through a culture of continual improvement. Strategy prepares your organization
for whatever may come.

Taking Action to Accelerate

Embrace and practice these actions:

 Actions for mobilization – Talk to customers, collect data, gather their

perspectives and gain insight into what they want. Help clients improve their businesses.
Don’t just sell to them; instead, share your advice, and ask for their thoughts about your
business. Deliver gold-standard service, even before you solidify your costs. Mobilize by
resolving internal issues quickly. Delegate decision making and responsibility beyond
senior leaders, quickly get out of nonperforming ventures, and set high expectations with
aggressive goals aligned to your strategy. Once you focus on a few top priorities, evaluate
them constantly, and shift to other priorities if they don’t work or conditions change. Rally
your employees around a short, clear, meaningful vision that describes the organization’s
purpose. Center your mission on customers, employees as well as the advancement of
society.
 Actions for execution – Execute by choosing a small number of measures to
use to gauge your progress. Refer to them to make better decisions. Replace a metric when
it no longer calibrates to shifting business priorities. Keep your organization flat – aim for
five levels or so – and reduce bureaucracy, rules and procedures. Commit to decisions and
move to execute; don’t debate. Establish core values, and fire anyone who doesn’t live up
to them. Reward people who learn continually. Place your best employees in the most
critical jobs. Shift people to teams and projects that most effectively leverage their skills
and abilities.
 Actions for transformation – Build a culture of innovation and
experimentation in which fast failing is safe and taking risks is normal. Encourage candor
and plain talk, examine difficult issues, and admit your errors. Reward and recognize
employees who share their ideas and constructive criticisms. Let weak performers go.
Break down silos by rewarding and recognizing collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Design your offices to facilitate casual encounters among people who might not otherwise
interact. Promote from within when possible, and provide incentives for teamwork rather
than fostering individual “stars.” Invest in research and development, and avoid the
 internal competition and fiefdoms that characterize low-culture firms. Don’t tolerate
people who refuse to share information, knowledge or talent. Encourage transparency.   
 Agile actions – Stay tuned to external news and trends. Tap into thought
leaders in your industry. Share information widely so everyone gets better at predicting
the future. Assume that your predictions will happen, and still plan for each contingency.
Push for action in response to forecasted change, and hold people accountable. As you
encourage risk taking and fast failure, always review what went wrong to learn from
mistakes. Set up internal networks for peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing. Hire
people for their love of lifelong learning. Make sure headquarters doesn’t act as a drag on
the firm through bloated bureaucracy and unnecessary layers. Stay lean. Develop a deep
understanding of the technology that affects your business, particularly digital and social
media tools and trends. When you fail, keep going; don’t retreat. Consider SpaceX, which
suffered several crushing setbacks, including the destruction of its rockets, but kept its
pace steady rather than risk losing momentum. Be aware of and help support your
employees’ health. Encourage down time and attention to their lives outside work. Insist
that they take vacations and weekends off.

“Recipes” for Acceleration

Don’t try to excel in every step suggested. Choose the moves that best fit your strategy
and culture. Select cohesive, integrated steps that complement one another so you
multiply their mutual effectiveness. Design an actionable approach by borrowing one of
these four recipes:

1. “Talent magnet” – Through Google’s outstanding HR practices, the

organization’s constant search for the best hires and its excellent retention
strategies, it concentrates on talent as a differentiator. Choose this recipe when
your talent base is a “competitive advantage.” 
2. “Customer intimate” – Tata Consultancy Services focuses on customers first,
as evidenced by its introduction of new products and services and its low client
turnover. Choose this recipe if your customers are hard to get and easy to lose.
Make sure employees interact with, listen to and assist your consumers.
3. “Portfolio investor” – Start and drop business ideas nimbly, as investment
manager BlackRock does. Maintain a flexible budget so you can seize opportunities.
Encourage reallocation of funds to innovative areas. Apply this recipe in disruptive
markets.
4. “Execution engine” – This recipe emphasizes simplicity in setting priorities,
establishing flat hierarchies, moving quickly and experimenting. Firms like Apple
that aim for a high volume of product innovation master this recipe, as
demonstrated by their quick product cycles and streamlined decision making. 

“To make change really happen, it shouldn’t be managed; it should be empowered.

That distinction is the difference between authority and leadership.”
Structure your organization to fit the recipe you choose. Find the right talent and teams
to execute on your recipe. Analyze your plans, assess your talent and fill the gaps. Make
sure everyone knows what to do. Avoid driving people one way with a compelling
purpose and another way with misaligned rewards and incentives. Measure
performance accurately to make sure you reward the right actions and behaviors.
Nothing deflates employee engagement faster than unfairness. As a leader, exhibit the
change and behaviors you expect to see in others. Lead by doing, and keep
communicating about why you’re doing what you do – show vision and urgency. Hold
everyone, including yourself, accountable.

Teams in the META Framework

Most firms today depend on high-functioning teams that out-accelerate a collection of

individuals. The META approach applies to teams that mobilize with a strong focus on
the customer. Teams do better when they have more contact with customers, share a
common purpose and focus on clear goals – delegating the rest to staff outside the team.
Teams execute by assembling the right members with the right skills and by removing
those who don’t fit. Team members must speak up when they disagree and act based on
clear principles.

Do not “frame any future as ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Your job is to figure out what that future
holds and prepare for it, no matter what it is.”
Heed stakeholders’ assessments of teams’ performance, since team leaders tend to
assess their team’s progress in rosier terms than objective observers might use.
Stakeholders can offer a reality check.

Team leaders should avoid micromanaging so they don’t stifle creativity and
engagement. Bring teams together quickly to operate fluidly. Leaders should clarify
which decisions team members can make on their own, and then let the team hold itself
and each of its members responsible. Agile teams scan the future for insights into what’s
coming. They learn from both mistakes and successes. They adapt to change, recovering
quickly from miscalculations or errors.

Thoughtful Leadership

Board members and CEOs must think in terms of systems: how one force affects
another and can cause cascading effects and results. This early warning system lets you
see potential convergence among seemingly unconnected events, spot patterns and
trends, and avoid disruption.

“Organizations must identify what capabilities world-class competitors will possess in

the future and begin to invest now.”
Push your organization, employees, stakeholders and your industry to think differently.
Recognize the signs of limited thinking. For example, when you find yourself thinking
that only your ideas count, stop. When you attempt to satisfy two competing ideas
equally, regardless of their merits, stop. If you find yourself thinking about ways to get
more by combining competing ideas, carry on. Avoid myopic thinking which leads to
complacency and exposes your firm to disruption. If the stakes warrant expansion, think
bigger. Look for ideas from entirely different, potentially game-changing perspectives.
This tactic will help you spot disruptions on the horizon or even create disruptions when
they might be to your advantage.