(From Management Issues) -- To become a High Performance Organization (HPO) it is obviously vital to hire and retain the right employees. These are people who have an incurable curiosity, want to be challenged, need to have responsibility and at the same time ask to be held accountable, and want to perform better - everywhere and anytime. These high performance employees perform better than the average employee and because of that, they contribute more to its effectiveness. With employees like these, an organization can transform into a true HPO.

But employees like these don't grow on trees. You need to inspire them.

HPO employees want to be inspired by their managers to continuously perform better and achieve extraordinary results. They want to be kept on their toes and be challenged. They continuously want to develop themselves, to achieve the best they can, and because of this, contribute to the success of the organization.

Employees of an HPO are quite extraordinary and it requires focused attention of managers to keep these people interested in working at the organization. HPO managers therefore consciously inspire their employees by giving them interesting work, challenging tasks and increased responsibilities; and stressing that they should be proud of their own achievements and those of the organization.

They stimulate self-confidence, an entrepreneurial attitude, firmness, a can-do attitude and a winning mindset in employees. HPO managers raise the performance of their people and themselves by setting high standards and stretch goals. They let people feel they are part of a bigger picture and inspire them to achieve greatness as part of the organization. They possess a crusading enthusiasm and take time to win people over.

Recently I held an interview with Mikael Sørensen, general manager at Svenska Handelsbanken NL. Something he said about inspiration intrigued me.