To elevate actual performance to the level that achieves its goals and aspirations, as embodied in its vision, a genuine and comprehensive assessment is required to identify and measure the gap between performance levels. To address this gap most effectively and cost-efficiently, the organization must focus on two fundamental considerations:
- Identifying the elements that can hinder or support performance, leaving nothing to chance or personal judgment.
- Avoiding reducing the solution to a problem or improving performance to a single “procedure,” unless the analysis confirms that this is the appropriate solution and no other solutions are necessary. This is a very rare occurrence, representing less than 10% (on average) of cases requiring organizational performance improvement.
First Consideration: Performance Elements
Because performance does not occur in a vacuum, every element or component of the organization can affect organizational performance to varying degrees, both positively and negatively. This includes everything from organizational strategies and directions to the efficiency and effectiveness of processes, procedures, communication methods between employees and departments, organizational structure, and so on, culminating in employee capabilities and skills.
In other words, since overall performance It is the sum total of individual performance within functional units, both the main units (responsible for designing and delivering the final product and service to customers) and the supporting units (which form the foundation for the success and efficiency of the main units). The quality of the organization’s strategy and its internal environment has the greatest impact on this sum. To paint a clear picture that reveals the “performance gap” between the current situation and the desired situation, organizational performance analysis focuses on the following two types of information:
Information that helps analyze the situation that the organization’s senior management wants to achieve. This situation represents the organization’s direction, and understanding it helps define the scope of the research and the framework for the efforts that will be made in the analysis. This information describes all the capabilities and organizational elements necessary to implement the organization’s strategy and achieve its goals. The importance of organizational directions lies in their being the cornerstone of all policies, sub-strategies, and subsequent decisions, as they have a significant impact on formulating and applying performance standards used to define, determine, and achieve the targeted or optimal performance. As is known, the basic elements of organizational directions are vision, mission, values, goals, and strategies.
Information This helps analyze the drivers that influence current performance and hinder or support the organization in reaching its target position. Analyzing this information aims to determine what needs to be done to successfully improve organizational performance based on current data. This information describes the internal and external environmental factors of the organization (such as competition, workplace, and employee performers).
Second Consideration: Choosing Solutions or Initiatives
Organizations are systems comprised, for the most part, of a complex and interconnected set of management, individuals, jobs, processes, functions, and technology. In addition, several elements contribute to each organization possessing its own unique character, distinguishing it from others (positively or negatively), such as culture, values, principles, philosophy, and skill and competency levels. Therefore, the interaction of these elements, which can be categorized as resources and capabilities, allows the organization to possess characteristics that distinguish it from its peers in the economic field.
When organizational performance fails to reach an acceptable level, it is rarely due to failure. Or the failure of just one element, especially considering the numerous variables resulting from the interaction of these elements or components. Therefore, a key consideration in performance analysis is not to reduce the search process to preconceived assumptions, immediate solutions, or one-dimensional or fragmented solutions, particularly regarding skills and knowledge (which may be lacking), but rather to focus on examining all other obstacles that may hinder achieving the desired level of performance, such as operational, motivational, and cultural factors, etc.