Summary of my book The High Performance Organisation (2017 edition)

1. MANIFESTO & EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DRIVEN
building the Agile Organization requires Leaders to create the Workforce for
the Future
in a Culture of Learning & Innovation.
Five fundaments matter to become a High Performance Organization (HPO): quality of management,
openness, readiness to take action, long-term focus and continuous improvement of employees. In a
HPO employees must be High Performing Individuals (HPI): focused on customers, quality and
continuous improvement, inspiring each other to collaborate to achieve excellent results. HPI-
employees like to be accountable for their results and take ownership in High Performance Teams.
Learning in the flow of exponential change: make your job a challenge!
That sounds great – but corporate reality often looks a little different. Employees tend to have
narrow job descriptions because a lot of organizations are designed by Frederick Taylor's principles. A
rational division of labor and jobs makes organizations look efficient and effective and provides
management with a feeling of control. But is that true? Narrow job descriptions and controlling
managers cause "acquired dependency", avoiding risks and waiting for permission. The Taylorian
organization leads to waste of employees' creative and innovative potential.
Research (Quelette & Wood, 1998) shows that when challenge in your job is lacking, "new behaviors"
are soon replaced by "old behaviors" like dependency on your boss.
High Performance Employees are crucial in building the agile High Performance Organisation. Charles
Darwin already stated that humans need challenges to stay strong and vital (The Descent of Man). It
is important to get your employees out of their comfort zones and expose them to some positive

2. challenges regarding organizational change…! Stimulate them to think for themselves, develop
improvements and behave in a more entrepreneurial way at work. A great way to do so, is to
combine working with practical learning.
High Performance Individuals – from followers to leaders
What you ultimately need to become a High Performance Organization are new behaviors, like
openness (sharing information and speaking your mind – also when you disagree), readiness for
action (not just talking about it, doing what you have planned), entrepreneurship (seeing
opportunities and experimenting or even taking risks), collaboration (communicate well, allow others
to do their thing, fine tuning your work to facilitate colleagues) and achieving results, getting things
done!
Combining daily work with learning these new behaviors can enhance commitment and employee
engagement. In these times of unpredictable and heavy competition organizations need employees
who can handle complexity, dynamics at a high pace and uncertainty. We need highly skilled
employees but also collaboration, creativity and results-oriented working. The only way to develop
the new behaviors in today's busy and unpredictable workplace, is learning by doing. You can't
control this in a school curriculum. You have to use trial and error to see what works in your
organization.
Four qualities of High Performance Individuals
A meta-research project on human behavior by Harvard professors Lawrence and Nohria (Driven,
2001) shows that humans need to develop four drivers to survive. This theory is grounded on Darwin
and is called Renewed Darwinian Theory of Human Behavior.
The four drivers of human behavior are:
 The drive to acquire
 The drive for security
 The drive to learn
 The drive to belong
Darwin describes these competencies as critical factors to survival. They are also recognizable in the
Competing Values Framework (Quinn & Cameron) on which the HPO-scan culture survey is based.
Based on the four behavior drivers, people develop these competencies:
 Business & Goal-oriented competencies (wanting to win, Market culture)

3.  Planning & Procedure-oriented competencies (wanting security, Hierarchy culture)
 Self-organizing & Creative competencies (eager to learn, risk taking, learning by trial and
error and improvising, Adhocracy culture)
 People & Motivation competencies (wanting to collaborate and relate, Clan culture)
Mostly, 1-2 competencies are present by nature: This is everyone's personal comfort zone or your
core competencies. The other competencies are not developed: They are your "allergy" when you
encounter them in others or they could be your challenge (you'd like to learn them but it doesn't feel
natural).
High Performance Individuals are "four of a kind": They are able to switch between the four
competencies depending on the situation. They have developed all four and will show them in
behavior when necessary. HPI's have a similar profile as entrepreneurs; they act like intrapreneurs;
being driven and showing enterpreneurial spirit within the organization.
The same underlying thought – develop these four styles – grounds Organization Development.
Utilizing the HPO-Scan to assess culture, the outcome shows how your organization has developed
these four competencies and whether the balance is right or not (yet). In alignment with the
Renewed Darwinian Theory of Human Behavior, Cameron and Quinn also found from their research
that highly successful organizations are able to show competing behaviors and switch between the
four culture types, leadership styles etc, when necessary. They can show contradictory behavior in
response to situations. Research with the HPO-Scan shows that organisations that have balance as
well as focus with the four culture quadrants outperform other organisations.
Disruption: opportunity for transformation
In response to the Taylorian division of labor and the 19th century industrial management, today's
highly educated professionals working in unpredictable, complex and fast-changing environments,
vote for corporate cultures that are based on Self-organizing & Creative competencies (learning by
trial and error and improvising, Adhocracy culture) and People & Motivation competencies (wanting
to collaborate and relate, Clan culture). They need professional freedom beyond narrow job
descriptions as well as accountability to achieve results on time (instead of waiting for permission),
they need trial and error, and the freedom to excel and deviate when necessary, while providing
their complex services and products and satisfying customer needs. If they are true professionals,
they will like the challenge to develop all four competencies to be ready for whatever comes their
way…
The hallmarks of the 21st century are exponential change and disruption. Comfort zones are less and
less likely to endure – and they get smaller all the time. This creates many opportunities for
energizing learning experiences in the flow of work and change. Thinking and acting out of the box as
well as experiments and risk taking is the new normal. Learning in the flow of change requires a
strategic confluence of change management and human resource development. Highly professional
guides (‘sherpa’s) trained and experienced in organisational transformation as well as in human
talent development wil lead the corporate journey into a new future.

4. Just do it
The good thing about the HPO-scan online survey (hpodiagnose.nl) is its great starting point for
change, leading to engaging workshops with participants (employees, executives, professionals)
where people experience the power of insight, learn to let go of their "acquired dependency" and
take ownership for change adventures.
I'm looking forward to all those High Performance Organizations that will emerge…!
Jan-Dirk den Breejen
jandenbreejen@gmail.com
Literature
Breejen, J.D. den, De High Performance Organisatie: een integrale aanpak. Management van leren en
veranderen (Kluwer, Alphen aan den Rijn 2009)
Bremer, Marcella, Organizational Culture Change: Unleashing your Organization's Potential in Circles,
(Kikker Groep, 2012)
Darwin, C. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. (London, John Murray, 1871)
Lawrence, P. en N. Nohria, Driven. How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices(London, John Wiley &
Sons 2002)

5. Quelette, J.A. en W. Wood, Habit and Intention in Everyday Life. 'The Multiple Processes by Which
Past Behavior Future Behavior' in: Psychological Bulletin vol. 24, nr. 1, p. 54-74.
Quinn, R.E. en K.S. Cameron, Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the
Competing Values Framework (San Francisco, Jossey Bass, 2014)
Waal, A.A. de, Maak van je bedrijf een toporganisatie! De vijf peilers voor het creëren van een high
performance organisatie (Van Duren Media, Culemborg, 2008)
Zull, James E., The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the
Biology of Learning (Stylus Pulishing, 2002).
Jan D. den Breejen is a Dutch innovation & HPO-expert at Schouten & Nelissen Global and the author
of the Dutch book De High Performance Organisatie: een integrale aanpak. Management van leren
en veranderen (Kluwer, 2009).