8) The Harmony Matrix - Building Organizational Health

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8) The Harmony Matrix - Building Organizational Health

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Perspectives on how to attain business excellence take many different paths. The important question is, what are best in class companies doing that the others are not? What path have they taken and what are they focusing their efforts on?

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What we have found through experience and in the literature is that great organizations have great work cultures. They have managed to blur the line between formal job descriptions and work as a community. People feel they can be themselves at work and take pride in their job, their team and the organization. They collaborate more, pay attention to detail, produce their best work and celebrate the success of others. They enjoy their work and the people they work with in a deep and lasting way. This builds a strong commitment to the organization and drives bottom line results, as illustrated in the following table:

Cultural Impact on Performance (over an eleven year period)*

	Organizations with performance-enhancing cultures	Organizations without performance-enhancing cultures
Revenue Growth	682%	166%
Employment Growth	282%	36%
Stock Price Growth	901%	74%
Net Income Growth	756%	100%

* The Economics and Social Costs of Low Performance Cultures (1977-1988), (Kotter & Heskett, 1992)

The Harmony Matrix ©

Driving Your Financial Results– The engine that is truly behind your organization's ability to produce financial results is the collective capacity of your people. Their ability to make decisions that drive competitively priced innovative products, improve brand image and build public and customer trust is critical to your success.

The Harmony Matrix© is designed to provide a model and simple concepts to guide business owners and leadership teams toward the tactics used by best in class organizations. It is a new paradigm for attaining organizational health. Incorporating two interrelated humanistic views of the organization, it provides an overarching philosophy to conceptualize, evaluate and build toward business excellence. Organizational Health is defined as a state of shared focus on positive outcomes and excellence throughout the organization supported by emotional fitness and ethical behaviour.

“The future isn't what it used to be” – Yogi Berra

The world is changing exponentially. Increasing competitive pressures, the incredible pace of change, technology advances and employee expectations of a positive and motivating work experience are creating unprecedented pressures on organizations.New and innovative ways of looking at how to balance these elements are needed. The old paradigms about organizational success are being shattered by the realization that people and their emotional experience at work are always at the heart of an organization.

Harmony Matrix Elements: The Harmony Matrix identifies six elements in a model that enables leaders to leverage these dynamics and transform their organization to a higher level of performance. They are in two categories – those being organization personality and organization behaviors. Organization personality drives behavioral outcomes, so fundamental organizational change begins there.

Organization Personality (thoughts, beliefs and emotions)

Resonance	Energy	Intention
Values – actual and exhibited, not just stated How employees feel about the organization and their role in it Beliefs employees have about the organization that drive their behaviors	Employee engagement level (passion, optimism, positive energy, job satisfaction) Leadership EQ level (respect for others, seeking alternative views, avoiding fear based behavior) Leadership competencies and ability to inspire others	Clarity of mission & vision of a compelling long term future Quality of strategic and tactical plans supported by objective data and metrics Clarity in accountabilities, responsibilities and roles Desired brand attributes of the organization and it’s key products/services

Once the personality of the organization is supportive, leadership teams can then inspire the kind of behaviors they want to have in their organization. This includes commitments to excellence and creating an environment of innovation and social responsibility.

Organization Behaviours (actions, creativity and ethics)

Commitment	Creativity	Contribution
A long term commitment to the application of an appropriate quality framework such as ISO, Malcolm Baldridge, Canada Quality Counsel, Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard or TQM Continual use of best in class practices, tools and processes to drive efficiency and manage risk Effectiveness of change management execution	Encouragement of playful creative energy and fun that drives transformation, renewal and non-linear change Nurturing creativity to achieve innovative products and services that exceed customer expectations and continually excite them Building strong brands with an emotional component linked to shared values and lifestyle choice in the consumer’s mind	Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical conduct Authenticity of green practices, strategic giving and sustainable development Achieving ISO standards for environmental and social responsibility

So what does all this accomplish?

Simply put, these are the elements of corporate culture and behavior exhibited in the very best and most successful organizations. They are not always easy to accomplish, but they do illustrate the kind of strategic emphasis needed to achieve great bottom line results.

This table illustrates the linkages between the six Harmony Matrix elements and the attributes of top performing companies

Harmony Matrix®Elements	Attributes of Top Performing Companies *
Resonance	Strong culture (shared values and beliefs) Ability to attract and retain talented people
Energy	Quality of management Employee engagement
Intention	Strategies that get executed Long term focus and investment value
Commitment	Financial soundness and wise use of assets Quality of products and services
Creativity	Managed innovation Nurturing creativity
Contribution	Social responsibility Overall reputation

* The Conference Board. Executive action series No. 298 March 2009, Changing attitudes to work – what should HR do

Information:For further information on applying the Harmony Matrix within your organization contact CK Global Solutions by email , or call 1 (604) 909-1271.

Copyright Exclusivity:The Harmony Matrix© is exclusive to CK Global Solutions. Except where reference material has been quoted, The Harmony Matrix and the content therein is vested in and for the sole interest and use of CK Global Solutions, and is copyright.