High Performance Organizations

This tetrahedron is the basis for organizing the content in a CD-ROM. It emerged as Athena advisory board got together to clarity the content and design of the CD-ROM and applied pyramid building principles (developed by Prasad Kaipa and Chris Newham) in August 1995. We started inquiring what the cornerstones of a high performance organization are and how they bridge polarities (or paradoxes) in an organization. The four cornerstones (Letting Go, Authenticity, Results, Knowing Boundaries) become the foundation for the tetrahedron that we show here. On each triangle you have three cornerstones creating a 'force field' represented by the face names (Energy, Learning, Reflection and Choice, and Building Relationships). The 'field' results from the interplay between three cornerstones.

It is important to remember that each triangle is a part of the 3-D tetrahedron (a larger system) and each face has a missing cornerstone. The process in which we designed this tetrahedron included our stories, our mental models and the meaning that we give to our experiences. Prasad has built similar models for organizations to use in strategic planning, envisioning their future, designing their training programs etc. This is an example of applied non-linear thinking.

You can create a 3-D model of this tetrahedron, too!

Download the Illustrator EPS version for hi-resolution printing HERE.

Download the 300dpi JPEG version for hi-resolution printing HERE.

Or, start by printing this page (low-resolution) onto a 80 lb or thicker paper and cut around the outer edges of the tetrahedron and fold in at the lines, and paste the edges to make a tetrahedron.

We also have detailed instructions on how to Construct a Paper Pyramid Model.

[Return to Top]