One method, a community of practitioners

The secret to real organisational performance is engaging the people closest to the problems that are limiting that performance. They know more about how to improve customer value and commercial responsibility than anyone in your organisation. High Performance through Engagement is an organisational performance strategy that puts the knowledge, expertise and intuition of people at the heart of it. That means it also puts their representatives and Unions at the heart of it. HPtE is a performance strategy with an industrial relations component, not an industrial relations strategy trying to influence performance.

HPtE was founded by Karl Perry and is carried forward by a growing community of HPtE Practitioners: the managers, HR and IR professionals and union representatives who have learned the method and use it where the work happens.

Founder

Karl Perry

Founder and creator

Founder and Director of Employment Relations Centre in New Zealand and the UK, creator of The 3Cs Model™ and HPtE Strategy®, and author of Rising Above the Clouds. His work sits at the intersection of the Theory of Constraints, organisational psychology and employment relations, shaped through practice across aviation, healthcare, manufacturing and the public sector, from Air New Zealand’s move from adversarial IR to genuine partnership through to British Airways today.

An Accredited Human Synergistics International Practitioner with a Black Belt in Thinking, Karl also created The Rapid Improvement Process (TRIP), based on his Perry Approach to the Evaporating Cloud, built RIC (the Rapid Improvement Coach) and founded the HPtE Practitioner Community of Practice.

He wrote The HPtE Workshop and the HPtE Practitioner Pathway, the route by which an organisation’s own HR, IR and union representatives qualify as accredited HPtE Practitioners.

His mission: helping organisations turn conflict into their competitive advantage.

What clients say

“Karl has a unique and extremely valuable skill set within the philosophy and practical implementation of High Performance Engagement. He has rich and real capabilities in this space to think and engage strategically with internal and external stakeholders, build effective and improved working relationships, and facilitate workshops & training sessions across all levels of complex organisations. His toolbox and methods, combined with his deep understanding of human and organizational psychology, enable him to be a trusted & impartial partner and advisor. I would absolutely recommend Karl to any organisation serious about creating a High Performance Engagement workplace.”

Patrick Behrendt — Operations and Transformation Senior Executive, who worked alongside Karl on the Air New Zealand programme

“NZALPA recommended Karl to Air New Zealand when they were seeking external High Performance Engagement facilitators in late 2014. He was the highest scoring candidate and has successfully facilitated a number of challenging issues using the HPE approach that NZALPA has had direct involvement in. Moving from a traditional combative and conflict-based relationship toward a more collaborative approach is not an easy task. Karl is able to remain a neutral and impartial facilitator while guiding the parties through sometimes complex and emotive problem solving. I can personally recommend Karl as a consultant, facilitator and as a leadership coach.”

Dawn Handforth — General Manager, New Zealand Air Line Pilots’ Association (NZALPA)

The HPtE Practitioner Community of Practice

HPtE is not delivered to an organisation. It is built inside it. The HPtE Practitioner Community of Practice is the people doing that building, on both sides of the relationship, learning the method together and practising it together.

Practitioners progress through the HPtE Practitioner Pathway, from The HPtE Workshop through to accredited HPtE Facilitator and beyond. Along the way they get supervision, peer support and live practice in the Community of Practice, so the method holds when the room gets difficult.

The aim is always internal capability. Each organisation grows its own practitioners, and each practitioner strengthens the community for the next. Explore the Practitioner Pathway or see how an engagement starts.

The HPtE methodology is owned by Employment Relations Centre Limited (NZ) and delivered in the UK by Employment Relations Centre Limited (UK) under licence.