Building the Shared Performance Culture

Concepts, after all, are only as good as the people who execute them. Their success depends in essence on three factors first, the individuals own goals and 

Joint development of a core competence based vision and motivating growth strategy 

A two-step process has proved a valuable tool to address the individual perspective in building a shared performance culture. Fig. 15.8 shows an example of a division of a chemical company for which a common vision was to be developed. 

In the first step, in-depth interviews are conducted to explore personal attitudes. In these, the independent interviewer should not focus on facts alone, but also on the very personal level of reasons and motivation. Typically, for example, the organizational structure of product areas is not defined by logic, but more often by a manager s personal desire to incorporate highly profitable areas into his own area of responsibility to mask weaknesses in his current portfolio. 

The results of the first consensus workshop should be used to define projects which will then focus on finding firm solutions. In this second step, it is crucial to staff project teams with members from both of the pre-merger companies. After an intense working phase, each project team has to present its results to the whole management team in a final consensus workshop, giving the shared perspective of the new team. 

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