Leading Change in Organizations: “Creating High Performing Organizations in Tanzania – Experience of the College of Business Education”

Interest in creating High Performing Organizations (HPOs) has been growing around the globe particularly in Tanzania and managers have been looking into practices that will help them elevate organizational performance. Unfortunately, there is less of HPO studies conducted in Tanzania, which could help such managers. Thus, an exploration of the managerial strategies and processes that ensure high performance driven behavior at the College of Business Education (CBE) is the main foci of this paper. The goal of the study was to review the management strategies and programs implemented by the CBE over the years to assist it become high performing institution. Moreover, what differentiate the very best organizations from the rest is stressed. This study utilized both secondary data drawn from the existing literature and primary information which was obtained through an interview and self-administered mailed questionnaire to a purposive sample of selected 10 employees working within CBE. The result reveals that development of human capital, the managerial capabilities, and innovative characters are fundamentals to creating HPOs in today’s competitive environment. In order to create HPOs, many of the traditional bureaucratic approaches to management need to be discarded and replaced by employee-oriented approaches, which gives preference to sharing of information, knowledge and, power with employees. High performance in an organization can therefore be achieved by understanding organization’s goal, ensuring that employees have essential skills to reach that goal and nurturing a trusting environment. Key words: CBE, creativity, High Performing Organization, innovation, and Management skill