“Show me how you will measure me, and I will show you how I will behave.”

Eli Goldratt said this, and, as with most things he said, you would ignore this at your peril.

The problem, however, is that certain words are loaded with assumed meaning. Your interpretation of what this sentence means will influence what you do with this insight, and how you do it. Those decisions about what you do and how you do it may result (or may have already resulted) in your deciding that this adage is not true. You may be measuring people in certain ways, and feel that the consequent behaviour that you were hoping for, is just not following. If this is the way you feel, the reason I know is not because I am psychic, but because I have seen this enough times to know that it is not uncommon.

Measuring is not automatically Managing

There is another adage which says that you cannot manage what you do not measure – often wrongly attributed to Drucker or Deming.

The greater mistake that people often make, however, is to make a few, often sub-conscious assumptions that flow from this, the most dangerous being that you can manage what you do measure. Or even worse: You manage what you measure.

It does not in any way automatically stand to reason that just because you are measuring something, that you are managing it, and even less so does it stand to reason that just because you are measuring something, that you are managing it well. Measurements do not always influence behaviour. Sometimes even when it does drive behaviour, it does not do so in any way that actually enhances individual or organisational performance.

When measurement does not influence behaviour, the issue most likely is in your definition of the word, “measure.” In business, the words, “Measure” and “Performance Management” are often closely related. Those, in turn are often related to quarterly, half-yearly, or annual performance reviews, where you have an awkward conversation with your people about their performance and these so-called key performance indicators, or the key result areas, or the bhags and thags, or their areas of development (aka their failures and weaknesses – but we cannot call it those). Most leaders dread the process about as much – sometimes more – than the people being reviewed, and most of the time everyone is just happy when it is over.

How you implement is more important than what you implement

I have worked with and implemented many measurement systems of all sorts in businesses of various sizes over the past 30 years. KPI, KRA, OKR, 4DX, Balanced Scorecard; quarterly performance reviews, annual performance reviews, round tables, one-on-ones, and a whole bunch of variants and combinations of these and more. In my experience, the likelihood of getting good results from your measurement systems is not so much determined by which model or framework you choose, but rather by the way you think about your business, and the culture that already exists within your business.

Or, in different words. If you currently are not actively and deliberately measuring and managing performance, then the most important decision you need to make is not about choosing the right tool. They all work. How you implement it, is going to have a much greater impact on the success, than the actual tool you use.

Performance management is great for strengthening toxic cultures

There are only two ways to get people to do what you want them to do:

You can inspire them,

Or

You can manipulate them.

If you have already created a culture of manipulation and mistrust, then implementing formal performance management will further erode trust and create more toxic and manipulative behaviour. In fact, a performance measurement system is probably one of the single most effective ways to deepen and entrench a toxic culture.

They are also great for strengthening high performance cultures

On the other hand, if you have already created a culture that is highly engaging, where people are inspired to bring the best of themselves to their vocation, then a measurement system becomes a scoreboard that helps them understand how and where they can do even better. It aligns effort. It highlights the most important areas of improvement to focus on, and it strengthens and builds the alignment of effort from individuals to teams across the organisation.

So when we say, “Tell me how you will measure me, and I will show you how I will behave,” it does not only refer to what you will measure, but also to how you will measure, and how, and how often you will communicate with me through this process.

To your success

Ashton

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