There are many reasons why organisations fail to
create a culture of performance. Here are some common ones you
might have encountered:
Frameworks, methodologies and software do not make
a performance culture
These are great at providing the tools to make it
happen. They are great at collecting the information and displaying
it effectively, so it can be seen and used. But, that is not sufficient.
Implementing tools, approaches, scorecards and frameworks without
addressing the cultural issues, tends to simply freeze any existing
poor practices. The status quo is further embedded.
Measures and mind reading
Many organisations pass measures and targets down.
Some fail to explain what the measures are for. Somewhere, someone
has decided that the measure is a useful representation of what
they want people to achieve. However, instead of communicating
the objective and saying that they believe this measure will best
measure it, they simply communicate the measure, as if it is the
objective. This means people have to guess or mind-read what the
real objective was.
Measure madness
This can get worse when the first measure is found
unsuitable so others are added. Very soon there are so many measures
(and targets) that the people on the receiving end are unclear
which are important. Measure madness has developed. In extreme
cases, some call this, "Feeding the beast".
A culture of punishment for failure
At the same time the environment and culture you
put around performance will also make a difference. In an environment
that has created earlier problems and also punishes failure, don't
be surprised when people behave dysfunctionally or distort targets
(think of ambulances waiting outside accident & emergency
to lower waiting times inside).
Understanding the bigger picture
When teams understand the bigger picture they are able to perform
better. Rather than being "micro-managed" they feel
they are part of a larger piece. As one client put it, "they
have a piece of the strategy in their pocket". Even if the
measures are in conflict, their understanding of the purpose and
objectives helps them step over this hurdle and deliver what is
needed, because they understand the bigger picture, how they fit
in and where they contribute.
It provides useful information
A key difference in the 'culture of performance'
is that people are reporting measures and targets that are useful
to them. They are also using them to improve their part of the
organisation. In contrast, "Feeding the beast" demands
reports, measures and targets that appear to make little
sense. In a performance focused culture, that information has
already been used locally to improve performance (and gets reported
as well).
It is about making change happen and managing that
change
Implementing any performance management approach
is a change management exercise. What levers of change are you
using to implement performance management? Are you just measuring
performance or are you trying to improve performance?
If you have your team and workforce behind you,
it makes a dramatic difference. A team engaged with heads and
hearts will work together and can make a bigger difference. That
is why help you influence the thinking, motivation and attitudes
of your staff. We also develop the skills of our clients.
A learning, (rather than punishment) culture
A culture of learning encourages people to demonstrate
they are improving, whereas, the culture of failure and punishment
often encourages dysfunctional behaviour.
Of course, you still need the discipline of performance
when people persistently fail to learn. But that is a different
problem to deal with. We call that, "The discipline of performance".
People have different motives, incentives, knowledge,
skills, capabilities, ideas about what they want and where they
want to go. They also have different ways of thinking about
things. We take advantage of this to achieve some big changes
you may have read about, by using the deeper techniques that underlie
what we do.
Below are some examples of where we made a difference
to the thinking, working and relationships in organisations.
Sometimes it is in the management team, sometimes middle managers
and sometimes it is in the workforce. It has depended upon
our client's need. Some examples:
These are just a few examples of how we help organisations develop
a culture of performance. If you want to develop a culture of performance,
then talk to us.
