How to build a high‐performance facility management organisation

Abstract

As people work through their daily lives, they interact with a variety of organisations. Some of those interactions are successful, and others are dreadful. And managers of organisations tend to look at their own organisational successes and failures and hope that the successes outnumber the failures. Managers observe that most of the successes come from the highest performing employees, and the failures tend to emanate from the worst performers. So, they try to encourage the worst performers to ‘become better team players’ or ‘be more sensitive to the customer's needs’, and hope that they eventually ‘get it’. Some will, and most will not. And then one day, a manager interacts with an organisation that ‘goes the extra mile’ and provides a great service or product, and he/she fantasises about what it is that makes this organisation successful, while his/hers is marginal at best. The answer to this question is actually quite simple, but to fix the problems can be time consuming and painful. The single quality that highly successful organisations all have in common is that they have an organisational culture which values leadership. They have achieved what few organisations have achieved: they have become a ‘Leadership Organisation’ (an organisation that has leaders at all levels of the organisational chart). Once an organisation has achieved this level of leadership, overall organisational success is easily achievable. This paper is intended to give managers a basic framework on how they can turn their organisations into high‐performing successes. Managers' ability to achieve this success can be limited by the legal process, the company's employment practices and culture, and their own willingness to make radical changes to their organisation. Once a manager has achieved building a Leadership Organisation, however, the rewards of success are well worth the effort.

Citation

Lloyd, J. (2005), "How to build a high‐performance facility management organisation", Journal of Facilities Management, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 325-337. https://doi.org/10.1108/14725960510630506