How can today's managers concentrate on what really matters to improve the performance of their organization, to reach outstanding goals? The answer is in What Makes an HPO. The five critical factors of the HPO Framework - Management Quality, Openness & Action-Orientation, Long-Term Orientation, Continuous Improvement & Renewal and Employee Quality - will help you turn your organization into an HPO. This book shows you what to concentrate on, how others have done it, and how to achieve it yourself. The HPO Framework is the result of a global five-year research project into the genuine success factors of High Performance Organizations (HPOs). The HPO Center, led by Dr de Waal, discovered what really works on the ground in every type of organization rather than what managers think should, or might have, worked. In his book André de Waal gives many real-life examples from a variety of sectors including Finance, Retail, Industry, ICT, High Education and Government, all illustrating the successful workings of the HPO Framework in organizations worldwide. Also included are many interviews with HPO leaders at Microsoft, SABMiller, Svenska Handelsbanken, HP, Tata Steel, Umpqua Bank, Unilever and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines.

Nonprofit leaders are beginning to confront the most important unfinished business of their sector. Having invented scores of successful model programs to address virtually every type of social problem or goal, they are discovering that large-scale, sustained impact remains elusive. Today, the only way to get the full benefit of successful programs, however, is for nonprofit leaders to begin building high-performance organizations?nonprofits that are capable of creating sustained, effective impact. That requires reversing decades of under-investment in the capacity of nonprofits. A sector that has been indifferent, if not hostile, to the needs of its organizations, where leaders are forced to manage upstream, against countless obstacles, now needs to apply its ingenuity and passion to the challenge of creating high-performance organizations. Drawing on management techniques used by successful managers in both businesses and nonprofits, High Performance Nonprofit Organizations outlines approaches that nonprofits can use to build their capacity for learning, innovating, ensuring quality, and motivating staff. Illustrated with case studies and examples, the book outlines processes for achieving these goals, including: * human resources management-to attract and develop employees truly in synch with an organization's mission * benchmarking-to identify practices that best meet a nonprofit's needs * responsiveness and quality systems-to continuously review and upgrade quality of service * product development-to tap the talents of every employee to create effective programs The authors argue that these processes?far from corrupting a nonprofit with practices that evolved to make companies more profitable?actually help an organization convert its values and integrity into results for clients and communities. These adaptive capacities help nonprofits deliver on their mission, building the model organization that will make the biggest impact with model programs. High Performance Nonprofit Organizations goes further, laying out an agenda for changing the nonprofit environment, making it more supportive of its managers and more aware of the potential of organizational capacity. The authors assess the special opportunity of several stakeholders-including the nonprofit board, foundations, and the national office of multisite nonprofits?to create a new culture that values organizational performance. For the nonprofit manager trying to build an organization that is truly responsive to its clients and community, High Performance Nonprofit Organizations is an essential review of best practices. For the board member, foundation program officer, or nonprofit leader trying to create sustained impact, it is a provocative challenge to deal with the sector's unfinished business with a new approach.

THE PRACTITIONER’S GUIDE TO GOVERNANCE AS LEADERSHIP The Practitioner’s Guide to Governance as Leadership offers a resource that shows how to achieve excellence and peak performance in the boardroom by putting into practice the groundbreaking model that was introduced in the book, Governance as Leadership. This proven model of effective governance explores how to attain proficiency in three governance modes or mindsets: fiduciary, strategic, and generative. Throughout the book, author Cathy Trower offers an understanding of the Governance as Leadership model through a wealth of illustrative examples of high-performing nonprofit boards. She explores the challenges of implementing governance as leadership and suggests ideas for getting started and overcoming barriers to progress. In addition, Trower provides practical guidance for optimizing the practices that will improve organizational performance including: flow (high skill and high purpose), discernment, deliberation, divergent thinking, insight, meaningfulness, consequence to the organization, and integrity. In short, the book is a combination of sophisticated thinking, instructive vignettes, illustrative documents, and practical recommendations. The book includes concrete strategies that can help improve critical thinking in the boardroom, a board’s overall performance as a team, as well as information for creating a strong governance culture and understanding what is required of an effective CEO and a chairperson. To determine a board’s fitness and help the members move forward, the book contains three types of assessments: board members evaluate each other; individual board member assessments; and an overall team assessment. This practitioner’s guide is written for nonprofit board members, chief executives, senior staff members, and anyone who wants to reflect on governance, discern how to govern better, and achieve higher performance in the process.

We are entering a new era—an era of impact. The largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will soon be under way, bringing with it the potential for huge increases in philanthropic funding. Engine of Impact shows how nonprofits can apply the principles of strategic leadership to attract greater financial support and leverage that funding to maximum effect. As Good to Great author Jim Collins writes in his foreword, this book offers "a detailed roadmap of disciplined thought and action for turning a good nonprofit into one that can achieve great impact at scale." William F. Meehan III and Kim Starkey Jonker identify seven essential components of strategic leadership that set high-achieving organizations apart from the rest of the nonprofit sector. Together, these components form an "engine of impact"—a system that organizations must build, tune, and fuel if they hope to make a real difference in the world. Drawing on decades of teaching, advising, grantmaking, and research, Meehan and Jonker provide an actionable guide that executives, staff, board members, and donors can use to jumpstart their own performance and to achieve extraordinary results for their organization. Along with setting forth best practices using real-world examples, the authors outline common management challenges faced by nonprofits, showing how these challenges differ from those faced by for-profit businesses in important and often-overlooked ways. By offering crucial insights on the fundamentals of nonprofit management, this book will help leaders equip their organizations to fire on all cylinders and unleash the full potential of the nonprofit sector. Visit www.engineofimpact.org for additional information.

Fourth in a series of reports on the changing nature of public service in government and the nonprofit sector, Pathways to Excellence focuses on a unique survey of contemporary thinking about creating effective nonprofit organizations. Based on interviews with 250 leading thinkers from the worlds of philanthropy, scholarship, and consulting, as well as 250 executive directors of some of the nation's most effective nonprofits, the book argues that there is no one best way to higher performance. Although higher performance clearly requires a commitment to excellence, it can be achieved along more than one pathway using one of several different strategies. Pathways to Excellence shows that every nonprofit organization can improve—no matter how well or poorly it is currently performing—often by taking simple first steps up a development spiral to high performance.

Praise for The Nonprofit Organizational Culture Guide "This is an important book for consultants and managers who work with nonprofit organizations. The Nonprofit Organizational Culture Guide lays out basic theory about how nonprofits come to be and how they operate, and it demonstrates how important the concept of culture is to understanding this important sector of our society." —Edgar H. Schein, professor of management, emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management "This book is a must-read for nonprofit executives! The authors spell out the themes, beliefs, and assumptions that are unique to nonprofits, regardless of their size or mission, ultimately revealing how 'culture' manifests itself in organizations." —Darryl A. Jones, Sr., CEO, Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations "This is the book that the nonprofit community has needed for a long time. The authors provide a compelling assessment tool that all organizations can use. This book is essential to understanding how nonprofits work and why they do, or do not, achieve the outcomes and missions they set for themselves."—Flo Green, vice president, IdeaEncore Network "Anyone who works in a group and relies on others to get things done will benefit from this book. Readers will discover how the environment of an organization influences how decisions are made and, ultimately, how things get done." —Natalie Abatemarco, director of North America community programs, Citigroup, Inc. "Every organization has culture, recognized or not. And that culture plays a powerful role in shaping the way people act within that context. The insights, frameworks, and tools in this book will help people become more astute within their organizational cultures." —Brian Fraser, lead provocateur, Organization Jazzthink

Leap of Reason is the product of decades of hard-won insights from philanthropist Mario Morino, McKinsey & Company, and top social-sector innovators. It is intended to spark the critically important conversations that every nonprofit board and leadership team should have in this new era of austerity. The authors make a convincing case that the nation's growing fiscal crisis will force all of us in the social sector to be clearer about our aspirations, more intentional in defining our approaches, more rigorous in gauging our progress, more willing to admit mistakes, more capable of quickly adapting and improving--all with an unrelenting focus on improving lives.

A new approach to understanding and improving performance and public value This book presents the Public Service Value Model-an innovative, rigorous approach to defining public outcomes and quantifying results-to help readers understand and improve public service delivery. Filled with in-depth insight and expert advice, this guide will arm public service managers-whether in government, nonprofit, or even for-profit organizations-with a practical framework that can be used to define outcomes and manage trade-offs in public service delivery. Martin Cole (Hartford, CT) is Group Chief Executive of Accenture's Government Operating Group. Greg Parston (London, UK) is Executive Director of the Accenture Institute for Public Service Value.

A new framework for helping nonprofit organizations maximize the effectiveness of their boards. Written by noted consultants and researchers attuned to the needs of practitioners, Governance as Leadership redefines nonprofit governance. It provides a powerful framework for a new covenant between trustees and executives: more macrogovernance in exchange for less micromanagement. Informed by theories that have transformed the practice of organizational leadership, this book sheds new light on the traditional fiduciary and strategic work of the board and introduces a critical third dimension of effective trusteeship: generative governance. It serves boards as both a resource of fresh approaches to familiar territory and a lucid guide to important new territory, and provides a road map that leads nonprofit trustees and executives to governance as leadership. Governance as Leadership was developed in collaboration with BoardSource, the premier resource for practical information, tools and best practices, training, and leadership development for board members of nonprofit organizations. Through its highly acclaimed programs and services, BoardSource enables organizations to fulfill their missions by helping build effective nonprofit boards and offering credible support in solving tough problems. For the latest in nonprofit governance, visit www.boardsource.org, or call us at 1-800-883-6262.

How to stay on course and achieve extraordinary performance in a sea of change In today's change-or-die business environment, companies that achieve the highest levels of performance are "robust organizations"--those that adapt quickly and without losing their strategic direction. Distilling decades of research conducted by Rand, one of the nation's most respected business think tanks, The Four Pillars of High Performance explores the strategies to truly manage change. Using examples, author Paul C. Light extracts powerful lessons for managers and executives, and he provides readers with: Never-before-published research by Rand on the shared traits of the highest-performing companies Cutting-edge techniques for improving performance across an organization Valuable insights into the five major attributes of agility, alignment, metrics, incentives, and impact Case studies and vignettes drawn from the experiences of industry leaders in every sector