The HPO Center talks to Germt van der Veen, Director of GDF Suez Cofely Healthcare

“For many years, I had a top-of-the-line luxury French car, but found myself at the garage again and again. It turned out that it was not a high performance car. After all, I’m just a manager who simply wants his car to do what it’s supposed to do. I don’t care about the technology behind it, but the mobility that the car offers me. I’m trying to apply that same approach at Cofely Healthcare. Short-term sales are not what is most important, but long-term relationships. What the HPO Center does is in perfect keeping with our goals, namely, to focus on the long term. Their way of thinking links up perfectly with mine.

War room

A few years ago, we had the HPO Center carry out an HPO Diagnosis. We then set up a ’war room’ at our headquarters. We had a huge board made and, on it, listed in detail the five aspects that are important for us if we want to excel in the long term.

We have worked on this continuously ever since. These aspects were the focus of every meeting. Are these aspects still important? Are we still on the right path? Our image has improved immensely over the past few years as a result.

We have since removed the board and no longer have a static representation of our focus, but are developing a digital environment that we can use to show the situation at Cofely Healthcare ‘live’ at any given time based on reports.

The right course

The HPO Center is now working on developing a scan on a larger scale, so that we can also focus on the right aspects at our regional network companies. The best part about this method is that you measure whether or not – or have evidence that – you are a high performance organisation and/or whether you are on the right course.

Naturally you need to keep in mind that becoming an HPO is not a goal in itself; you become a high performance organization because you want to continuously benefit your customers, your employees and the world.”