The Power of Total Poise in Driving Sustainable High Performance

Dr. Oladele Akin-Ogundeji

President, TotalPoise Associates and coordinator, Better Poise

The power of poise can be phenomenal in both living and non-living systems!

You Can Bet This!

People achieve a far greater performance when they are physically, mentally and emotionally vital than when they are physically, mentally and emotionally sick. When an automobile is in top condition-all cylinders firing, all mechanical parts in sync, and all the peripherals and accessories are mint- what do you expect to get from it? When a motorway or freeway is spotless and the asphalting is of excellent quality, how will your ride be? When all parts of an organization- the various systems, the processes, the roles and the resources- are in top condition for the strategic situation of the organization, how well will it attain its strategic goals?

In all the above cases you will expect the best outcomes possible. You will expect that the automobile will be efficient and give a good account of itself. You will expect a pleasant, albeit, a near perfect ride on the freeway. And you will expect the organization to excel in its strategic mission. Each of the above cases represents a situation when the system is in total poise- its parts are wholesome-in equilibrium, in the best condition, and operate in sync.

What Total Poise in Organizations Is

In an organization, total poise obtains when all the key systems and people of the organization are well honed and positioned for excellence. The ultimate challenge facing top management in a pulsating business environment is how to achieve and maintain total poise for breakthrough performance. Many times top management tends to allow their organizations to remain in a state of partial poise- so long as they are attaining an already defined level of profitability or productivity. Far too often, and for too long, an organization tends to focus on certain systems to the detriment of others forgetting the interdependent nature of subsystems in an organization. Too often, and until very recently, many organizations focus on outcomes rather than the means, drivers, processes, and the equilibrants. In fact, had they focused on total poise-which enables all systems to deliver the potential they are capable of delivering-they might have achieved a quantum leap in overall performance; not during a particular fiscal year but through out the business life span. When there is total poise in an organization, the organization is in a position to attain breakthrough performance on a sustainable basis.

Of course, it depends on how today’s corporate executives see their mission. It depends on what they consider as their ultimate business mandate. Where the corporate executives see part of their mission as that of ensuring the future of their organizations in business, they will be taking imaginative steps in the direction of total poise. The mission, the goal, and the strategic thrust of efforts at sustainable high performance should be to facilitate the synergy of the systems in a condition of best-fit. It is to imaginatively foster the synergy of personal excellence and corporate excellence for driving sustainable high performance. Total poise results from a deliberate nurturing, empowerring, aligning, and positioning of all the key systems of an organization to be the best they could be in order to give the best they could give.

Using First Principles

To understand a phenomenon a first principle is to examine its elements. Then, to consider its essence based on the relationships of those elements. This is how we can appreciate the concept of ‘total poise’.

‘Total’ refers to all the key systems as well as all respect of the concept ‘poise.’ This indeed is a tall order, but it is the route to long-term success in a global and highly competitive corporate world. The truth is that the nature of today’s competition is beyond technology, but what drives technology, creativity and innovations, the superior essence of the human mind and character. This is where the competition will be-and is being-won or lost! Therefore, complacency with the equations and formulae that brought success in the last two decades could be detrimental, if not fatal to sustainable high performance today, and in the foreseeable future.

The Concept of Poise

There are some words that facilitate our understanding and appreciation of the concept of ‘poise.’ For example, wholesomeness, wholeness, integrity, strength, dignity, alignment, equilibrium, synchronization, and synergy are some of the concepts that go into an understanding of ‘poise.’ It is often the case that a commonly used concept often loses its essence but becomes better appreciated when we consider its opposite or what obtains when we do not have it manifested. This is the principle of reversal in operation. Thus, the essence of ‘poise’ can be seen from its absence. In fact, a far lot more can be appreciated when we apply this reversal method to the concept of ‘poise’. Such words or phrases as: tension, confusion, disturbance, chaos, uncoordinated condition, unrelaxed condition, lack of composure, and risk aversion, tend to vividly demonstrate what lack of ‘poise’ stands for. Thus, if you pursue this process to a further level, how many corporate executives will not feel fulfilled when their organizations exhibit strength, wholeness, integrity, wholeness, and wholesomeness? When you add alignment of all roles and resources with the strategic thrust, synergy of skills and systems, and the wholesome equilibrium of the subsystems in the strategic situation you’d be approximating an excelling organization that can stand the competitive fire of these times. On the reversal aspect, which corporate executives will believe their organizations can excel when the following conditions afflict their systems, processes and resources: tension, confusion, disturbance, chaos, uncoordinated condition, unrelaxed condition, lack of composure, and risk aversion?

Addressing Total Poise in Organizations

Total poise is critical to personal as well as corporate success, on a sustainable basis. In deed, an organization could attain some measure of success some of the time with what we see as ‘partial poise’. But an organization will accomplish break through performance and approximate excellence on a sustainable basis when all its systems-particularly its managerial and social systems, which drive, coordinate and align all the other systems- are in top condition. 

Addressing total poise in organizations is an enduring challenge but an ultimately rewarding enterprise. What are those aspects of ‘poise’ and ’total-ness’ are critical in the organization’s strategic situation? How do we arrive at consensus across the organization? How do we drive commitment to the total poise equation we are adopting? What framework are we going to adopt and how will this be institutionalized without being fossilized in the organization? These, and other such questions, need to be explored and addressed by corporate executives who care about their ultimate business mandate, that of  creating to the future of their organizations today.

(This article was posted on December 22, 2006)

Building Top Corporate Performers

Dr. Oladele Akin-Ogundeji

President, TotalPoise Associates and coordinator, Better Poise

Many organizations can gain much mileage in high performance management by adopting the principles of self-managed high performance and making them live in the minds and corporate behaviour of key staff members at various levels in their organizations. This way, they’d cultivate top-performance champions in their organizations. That is, people who commit to a vision of corporate excellence and live the habits of sustainable high performance.

Actualize These Principles!

Here are two of the proven principles of self-managed top performance in the process of achieving sustainable high performance in organizations.

The first principle of self-managed top performance within the context of sustainable high performance management systems is to define, agree and establish a top performance agenda or mandate reflecting the strategic realities and direction of the organization. The history of corporate success in the last 50-75 years shows that at the root of the enduring success of great organizations all over the world is a clear and vivid understanding of the top performance mandate in the long haul. Then this is thoroughly operationalized; that is, the key people of the organization wholly commit themselves to this and enliven it in the context of the organization’s business. That, essentially, is vision at work. However, as simple as this appears, and as important as this is, not many organizations do this in the process of sustainable high performance management. You’d go far and attain better results that last if you and your key people develop the capacity to do this.

The second principle is to identify, agree, cultivate and cascade the philosophy of top personal, team, and corporate performance in the organization. This is essentially alignment at work. The philosophy that drives the behaviour of your key people as individuals and as teams must be aligned with what drives top performance. Unfortunately, only few organizations attain this alignment. Why? Simply this: Many organizations fail to realize that such alignment doesn’t just happen. It is created! This alignment is an aspect of total poise development. A lot is involved for alignment to gestate. And this is the nub: The organization must have or develop the ability and aliveness to identify and cultivate the factors underpinning the alignment of top performance philosophy with the top performance mandate, then deliberately and painstakingly commit the organizational systems and resources to make this happen. What elements or factors go into ‘alignment?’ How does the organization develop the corporate ‘aliveness?’ How could it achieve commitment to top performance? How does it keep these things top of mind with its people? These are key challenges that top corporate executives have to successfully deal with for the principle to translate into sustainable high performance in their organizations.

The two principles discussed above, when imaginatively operationalized with others, will enable an organization attain high corporate performance that lasts. In essence, sustainable high performance management in a pulsating world goes hand in gloves with total poise development.

If you’d like to know more about how to actualize these and other such principles in your organization or you need constructive yet imaginative assistance to do better for sustainable high performance consider using our imaginative services (on HR and Organization Development) and products (e.g. on white papers and newsletter) helpful for driving sustainable high performance.

(This article was posted on December 22, 2006)

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