eManagement Tips - October 2019

How to avoid the pitfalls of performance metrics

It's that time of year: performance reviews, appraisals, setting new objectives... and the anxieties that go with this.

The latest issue of HBR carries an excellent article by Michael Harris and Bill Tayler on the concept of "surrogation": when people get so focused on a specific metric for performance, that they forget and neglect the underlying reason for why it exists.

They risk channeling all of their energy, and anxiety, into achieving, rather than applying their expertise and judgement to what's happening with the work that should be leading to it. A classic example is for a customer service related metric: is it more important that a customer scores the work as a "10", or that we understand what we did well to deliver that service, what we could have done better, and how we can continue to improve the customer experience?

See: Are your performance measures driving the right behaviours?

.. to find out more about Harris and Tayler's suggestions for avoiding "surrogation" and how we can apply their insights to make objective setting at all levels (organisational, team and individual) a focus for the positive discussion that it could be.

Why clarity of purpose is important for both leaders and managers

According to W. Bennis, “Managers are people who do things right and leaders are people who do the right thing.”

Clarity of purpose is one topic where these differences in remit can be vividly illustrated, as Thomas W. Malnight, Ivy Buche and Charles Dhanaraj remind us in “Put purpose at the core of your strategy” in the September-October 2019 issue of Harvard Business Review (pp. 70-79).

Clarity of purpose underpins organisational strategy and change:

• With clarity of purpose leaders can more effectively respond to external drivers of change
• They can take a planned approach to organisational change
• And they are more likely to achieve a successful high growth company

• Managers who communicate the purpose of the organisation will be more effective at gaining buy-in for change
• They are more likely to motivate stakeholders (including employees)
• And they will generally help teams to identify how they can add value and have impact in the organisation and potentially beyond it to the wider society.

See: Why clarity of purpose is so important for both effective leadership and effective management

... to find out more about Malnight et al's perspective on this topic.

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