Chapter I
The Holy Grail: Superior Performance

In 1975, my friend and colleague Peter Vaill (at that point the Dean of the Business School at George Washington University) wrote a short paper which turned out to be long on influence. The paper bore the academic sounding title, “Towards a Behavioral Description of High Performing Systems,” However, as Peter was quick to admit, the academics were only skin deep, if only because he found himself “unable to say what a High Performing System is.” So much for academic precision, and it gets worse. It turns out that the thoughts expressed did not result from careful research but rather from “intuitive leaps” most of which occurred in “one four hour burst.” In fairness, Vaill carefully identified each of his Behavioral Characteristics as “hypotheses,” which indicates that they are subject to future validation, although he says nothing about how such research might be conducted, and expresses no interest in pursuing it. At whatever risk, I can only say——It worked for me.

It is true that many have written about high performance in human systems before and after Peter Vaill, but the appearance of his paper was a watershed in my estimation. Those of us who happened to receive a copy found our view of organizations, the way they were supposed to work, and how we might work with them changed in ways that, at least in my own case, would take years to fully appreciate. Some of the other recipients of the paper obviously came to a quicker (and positive) conclusion, most notably Peters and Waterman. Peter Vaill’s “intuitive leaps” became a cornerstone of a much larger effort which hit the streets bearing the title, In Search of Excellence.

The fact that many of the organizations cited by Peters and Waterman as being “excellent” have now gone out of business does not detract from the powerful impact of this book. Indeed, it might be said that the history of organization and management thought during the succeeding years has been all about that search for what has turned out to be a most elusive quarry——Excellence. Or, were we to revert to the words of Peter Vaill, High Performing Systems. In short, we have been pursuing excellence and High Performance ever since, but somehow we never quite get there. Or perhaps more accurately, we never quite get there “according to the plan.” Excellence and high performance keep showing up——but rarely when we might expect them, even less when we planned on their arrival. But all of that is to get considerably ahead of our story, which properly begins with Peter Vaill’s “Behavioral Characteristics.”

The Behavioral Characteristics of High Performing Systems according to Peter Vaill

In the 1977 revision of his earlier paper, Vaill identifies some 52 characteristics. With frankness uncharacteristic of most academic papers he admits to certain favorites. In his own words, “Some hypotheses I am in love with and some I am not very interested in.” For the most part, Vaill’s favorites are those characteristics that would pertain to systems of all sorts, and the balance is more narrowly focused on businesses, and particularly manufacturing businesses (with machines). Following Vaill’s lead, I have focused on the favorites. The numbers at the end of each quote are Vaill’s original numbers.

• Do Not Follow the Rule Book (“There may be a public, objective theory or ‘rule book’ about how to do the thing that the HPS is doing, but there will always be discrepancies between this public recipe and what the HPS is actually doing. This may be called the ‘Doug Sanders backswing’ hypothesis to remind golfer-readers that orthodoxy is not an absolute virtue.” #7)
• Members Can’t Explain It (“Communication about how and why the HPS operates as it does from members to outsiders will tend to be in platitudes and generalities, or by showing rather than telling at all. Members will feel and often say, ‘There’s no way I can explain it to you’.” #10)
• Members Experience “Peak Experiences” (“Members will report ‘peak experiences’ in connection with their participation in the HPS. They will ‘enthuse’, ‘bubble’, communicate ‘joy’ and ‘exultation’.” #12)
• Performance Breakthroughs Occur in Unplanned Ways (“Performance breakthroughs occur in unplanned ways. Hypothesis 12 will be especially obvious on these occasions. Members will account for the event in relatively non-operational idioms, such as ‘we finally got it all together’.” #13)
• External Controls Are Seen As Irrelevant—Never Look at the Clock (“External controls on the activity of the HPS are seen by members as at best irrelevant and at worst as positive impediments to performance. Circumvention of the rules tends to be overt and non-apologetic.” #17. Also #20: “Members seek relief from the pressures of participation in the HPS according to criteria which are internal to the system——its current phase of operations and the needs and expectations of other members. External schedules for relief and breaks are usually regarded by members as inappropriate.”)
• The System Is Always “ON”—Even If You Can’t See It (“The system does not have a clear OFF/ON character. Members may regard it as ON when it seems OFF to observers, and OFF when it seems ON. The system’s movement from one state to the other is often difficult to detect from the outside.” #19)
• Neighboring Organizations Are Not Necessarily Pleased with HPS’s Output. (“The social value of the output of an HPS is problematic. Entities in the HPS’s environment will not automatically be ‘pleased’ with its output.” # 24)
• Members May Be Perceived as Thrill Seekers, Weirdos, or Mystics (“To the extent that members find participation in the HPS thrilling, they may become ‘thrill seekers.’ Activity in the HPS may provide a wide variety of sensual, affective, and cognitive experiences which, over time, members may become ‘motivated’ to attain and re-experience. For the most part, this kind of motivation may be relatively incomprehensible to observers. They may come to regard members so motivated as ‘weirdoes’ or ‘mystics.’ Negative judgments about members’ maturity and even morality may be made by untrained observers.” #34)
• HPS’s Groove (“HPS’s exhibit a rhythm of operation which is both subjectively felt by members and objectively evident to observers. An argot will exist for describing this rhythm, for example, ‘tempo’ (chess); ‘footing’ (yacht racing); ‘wailing’ (improvisational jazz); also ‘getting it on’ and ‘grooving’——and note that ‘grooving’ has been extended in its application to many other activities; ‘taking it to… (the opposing team)’; ‘traction’ (term coined by W. Baldamus to account for the tendency of an assembly line job to pull the worker along); ‘hitting one’s stride’; ‘having a hot hand’ (basketball); ‘getting the boat set up’ (crew); and ‘mounting a charge’ (golf). The general phenomenon that these terms refer to is that the same or improved effects are produced with substantially less effort than before the particular rhythm was achieved.” #39)

In reviewing Vaill’s Behavioral Characteristics of HPS’s, it quickly becomes apparent that the organizations described are anything but “standard issue.” Consider, for example, the characteristic, Members May Be Perceived As Thrill Seekers, Weirdos, or Mystics. And the other characteristics are scarcely better. The fact that members Do Not Follow the Rule Book is sufficient to drive any well-trained manager to distraction.

To the extent that Vaill’s Characteristics accurately reflect the general behaviors and conditions of High Performing Systems——doing what they do with Excellence, it is perhaps not surprising that the search for excellence has often come up empty-handed. And when it comes to our efforts to foster the development of such systems, our success just might have all of the popularity of a skunk at a garden party. It could turn out that although excellence and High Performance are valued in the abstract, the behavior of those who actually achieve these laudable states is socially unacceptable. Despite the odds, there can be little question that the search for both continues with intensity.