How organisations can achieve peak performance

Welcome to the age of limitless possibility where reality turns out exactly what you make it. Welcome to the age of massive information. Welcome to the era of brainpower where the amount of input determines your output in life. In this age, resources available at the click of a mouse provide opportunities for individual, business, organisations and government to achieve peak performance.

To the individual, peak performance is becoming all you can be. It also connotes living the extraordinary life that you deserve. Peak performance comes by beating your challenges. It is obtainable through creative thinking, motivation, hard work, discipline, passion and commitment. A successful organisation is the one that developed high quality skilled and motivated workforce that can confront challenges. Achieving peak performance in an organization begins with a leader who defines the mission and sets the focus. Such a leader must have a clear picture of what to do. That leader must be an inspiring and motivating player. He nurtures each worker in the right place within the organisation and inspiring trust. The leader stays inside the story. There should be more than one inspirational leader within the same organisation.

The story continues with a clear definition of the organisation’s mission. This also applies to a nation like Nigeria. Why does your organisation exist? What meaning does it provide? What need does it meet? What difference does it make? Mission defined provides direction for all stakeholders. In truth, peak performance is measured based on the greatest imaginable challenge that an individual or organisation sets for itself. The challenge must be realistic and tangible. As soon as the challenge is knocked off, the leader looks out for another challenge.

The next vital ingredient to nurturing peak performance is focus. Focus is the concentrating of all energies on actions needed to achieve a mission. Focus is identifying specific action to meet the challenge. I will recommend that the action should be few to enable maximum concentration. Focus helps to clarify values and priorities. In fact, peak performance principles works in every area of human endeavours. Clive Gilson, Mike Pratts and other researchers at the University of Waikato, New Zealand did extensive research on top sports organisations and discovered that there are consistent practices that enable the players to work together and effectively to exceeding their challenges. Let us take a football team that has the challenge of winning continental or global matches. Its focus should be how to hire the best coach, recruit and develop the best players.

For the team to achieve peak performance, the management must look after the welfare of the team. Focus is the breath that keeps you going when it gets tough. Moreover, to sustain peak performance ensures that excellent people are recruited and developed.

Another essential element for nurturing peak performance is to foster the spirit of bonding. A sense of closely knitted family where everyone share joy and pains. This will promote enthusiasm and security. Where this exists, workers will feel a sense of belonging. They will be passionate about what they do. Having a great dream and hiring excellent people are not enough to reach peak performance, a tending, physically beautiful environment that nurtures creativity is a very important factor.

Remember, the fulcrum of peak performance is maximum productivity, output and finished product. Such organisation must be a place where ideas flourish unhindered. Where a worker is not chewed out for mistakes although mistakes should be acknowledged and learned from. Here, innovation can flourish because there will be no fear of mistakes. Let me sound a note of warning, that peak performance is not a quick fix. It involves strategic and collective thinking.

Question: cab an individual, business, organisation or government achieve peak performance. Yes. Because the principles that predicates peak performance are premised on human agency. Again, if peak performance is achieved, can it abate? Yes. If the mission is lost, focus is distorted and infrastructure dismantled. What should the organisation do to keep the wave flowing? Peak performance could be sustained by continuing applying all the concepts that have been explained. The leader of the organisation should continue to stretch himself and his team to exceeding imaginable challenges. Always seek for opportunity to be creative, make a difference, and grow spiritually, intellectually and financially. Peak performance begins with a visionary leader. I therefore challenge you to take these tools, build them as a permanent infrastructure in your life, business, and organisation and reap its handsome rewards.

Matthew Oye is a Business and Management consultant.
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