There is a lot of discussion around getting people committed to an organisations cause, vision or mission.  This focuses a lot on not only getting the organisation clear on how it likes to work but also why they do what they do and what they need to focus on.  This is important for any organisation to focus on particularly government agencies as their employees, stakeholders, service providers are all looking to understand better what is important to the organisation.

The challenge with a lot of the work that takes place in this space is the ability to not only connect people’s head to why, what and how but also the heart.  It is particularly important when you are looking to develop a high performance organisation that delivers outstanding outcomes for the community, its service providers and its clients.    When we break down what high performance actually means, this is generally where we tend to struggle in truly understanding the level we are looking to achieve.  The reality of high performance as a concept these days is that every organisation can read an article, blog, paper or hire a consultant to build their individuals, team and organisation in to a level that is improved from where they started.  The intellectual property, concepts and frameworks are freely available on websites and with organisations who are readily available to assist in driving high performance and change.  The reality is though that very few if any organisations truly reach high performance that can be backed up by evidence, data or by benchmarking their performance against others.  Engagement is a causal but not a true measure of high performance as it is predominantly and internal indicator.

For a desired step change to occur and to truly be an externally focused high performance organisation, we must go beyond the head to the heart.  It is the ability to have a deep connection between the organisation and the individual.  There needs to be a greater meaning and understanding of the DNA of the organisation and why we do what we do.   This has to be through education and engagement around what we do, why we do it and how we operate as an organisation.  It also needs to be about understanding our history, our drivers and our key areas of success so that all staff truly are committed to the cause and our sense of being or spiritually that lies within the organisation.  This knowledge, deep connection with the organisation lies at the heart of staff knowing what emotionally and rationally drives them and creates a holistic sense of who they are and what they provide.

Without the heart being committed and people not being deeply connected to our why, how and what, we can make assumptions that all staff know and understand what being a member of our organisation is truly about.   High performance should not just be evidence based but a true connection to the organisation so that passion and purpose is unlocked in a manner that is truly spiritual.  We don’t want to leave to chance this type of connection with our staff.