Work Processes and Technology
High-performance work processes produce products or services of value to customers and society and meet the organization's goals for quantity, quality, cost, timeliness, customer satisfaction, innovation, efficiency, and safety and health. These work processes have clear goals, measures, and feedback loops. They contain no non-value-added activities and produce little waste.

The technology associated with the work processes supports and enables their operation. It also is responsive to user needs and capabilities, balancing the technical and human requirements. It is environmentally sound and, ideally, is ecologically sustainable.

Organization Structure
A high-performance organization structure aligns resources appropriately around both core work processes and functions, and provides the proper balance between centralized and decentralized operations. It develops a flexible and responsive work system with the fewest possible organization levels. It also minimizes the number of internal boundaries among units, which reduces the effort that must be spent on coordination.

Such an organization creates small, self-sufficient, self-managing units and teams, with strong linkages and high levels of cooperative effort among them. Employees are involved in high levels of problem solving and decision making and participate in major improvement efforts. The jobs of em¬ployees are designed to be essential, value adding, and fulfilling; there are a mini¬mum number of job classifications. Information flows openly in all directions with minimum distortion; information goes first to those people who need it in their work.

People
A high-performance organization has a set of human goals and principles that guides policies, practices, and behavior. People are treated with dignity and respect, and what they know and do are seen as assets to be developed, not costs to be mini¬mized. High investment in human resources development produces a high level of employee competence. By enabling the alignment of personal goals with business goals, the high-performance organization develops high levels of employee commit¬ment.

Employees are empowered, with decision-making authority pushed to the lowest possible level. New employees are carefully selected to ensure that their aspirations, attitudes, and skills match the needs of a high-performance organization. The organization is committed to the economic security, fair treatment, and safety and health of its employees. Multicultural diversity is valued and developed as is mutuality in labor-management relationships.

Organization Culture
Organization culture is defined as the pervading pattern of behavior that employees learn; it is the way things are done in the organization, the rules of the game. This persistent behavior is based on a common set of assumptions about how the organization should work, and those who deviate from these prescribed norms are likely to incur penalties.

Culture is evident in all aspects of the organization, for example, in its goals, values, and priorities, its structure and systems, and the distribution of power. It also is seen in the nature of the information that is shared, the process of decision making, the treatment of people, the rewards given, and the nature of internal and external relationships.

A strong, shared culture is necessary to support a high-performance organization. Such a culture has visible characteristics such as clear and accepted business and human goals, constant attention to the needs of customers and other key stakeholders, an open flow of information, involvement of employees in significant decision making, and the continuous improvement of the organization.

Results of High-Performance Organizations
Studies of the results of high-performance organizations in many different companies in the United States and Canada show that these work systems provide:

• substantial improvements in productivity, quality, and costs; also reductions in turnover, absenteeism, and grievances.
• minor to moderate improvement in employee attitudes.
• more involvement by members in union affairs; and no loss of union independence.

One clear finding is that the greater the number of the key elements of a high-performance organization that were present and congruent, the bigger the pay-off. This means that an organization that had fulfilling jobs for employees, self-managing work teams, a supportive role for first-line managers, an open flow of information, and so on enjoyed the most positive re¬sults.

Source of Reference:
Willian O. Lyte, Designing a High-Performance Organization, A Guide to the Whole-Systems Approach, Block Petrella Weisbord, Inc. You can obtain this fine book here