Performance is NOT Results

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises said Mae West.

Now there is a slim chance that the kind of performance that Mae had in mind wasn’t all that work focused – even if it does occasionally make use of a desk or a photocopier. But she is nevertheless still right about it being performance that counts. And to quote Gordon Gecko in the film Wall Street “everything else is just conversation”.

We are exercised by the use or misuse, of the words Performance and Results.

Now this is all going to sound a bit obvious but bear with us. Results and performance are not the same thing! 

Even though in many organisations they are used synonymously.

Our work in developing true high-performance cultures shows that the distinction between these words IS ever so important. Performance – the issue here is that performance isn’t results. Performance is what people do that then creates a result. So what, apart from pedantry, is the significance of that? Well how about the fact that in order to get different results you have to help your managers to develop their people’s performance, not just ask them for different results. The Emperor’s New Clothes surprise is that the vast majority of managers spend very little time developing their people’s performance – especially

when compared with the amount of time they individually spend worshipping at the altars of Email, Excel and PowerPoint.

Mae West and Andy Murray don’t feature in nearly enough consulting articles together so let’s take an example of performance from the world of sport…If Andy Murray’s coach, in the last couple of years, had just told him “I want you to win your next match” every time he lost, then he probably wouldn’t have developed as much as he has. He knew he wanted to win (get the result); he didn’t need a coach to tell him that! He just didn’t know HOW to win (develop the performance). So his coach got him to work on fitness so that he could last

5 sets, to “bulk up” so that he could hit more powerful shots, to work on his backhand because it broke down under pressure... and surprise, surprise the result is a US Open win. Just by doing what Ideas Unlimited has been shouting at the television!

What's disturbing you?

"Write about what disturbs you, especially if it doesn't seem to be disturbing anyone else" Skeeter Phelan is told by her publisher in "The Help". I'm disturbed by Syria, I'm disturbed by water shortage and the growing social divide. I'm disturbed by our decline in mental health. I'm also disturbed by the way grated cheese behaves when you are trying to clean up after a 3 year old and the smell of the house when the local Tom cat has been in. But apart from the grated cheese I don't think I am disturbed my much that others aren't. So I thought I'd dedicate this blog to grated cheese - they way it is irresponsive to a damp dishcloth, the way it curls off the plate onto the floor when you move from table to sink, its general level of unpredictability... Not really. What I wanted to say here is this. I'm disturbed by how more and more desperate many people in large organisations seem to be for space, for time to think, to be listened to, to collaborate, to churn and discuss things over, to take autonomous decisions in the interests of the mission at hand. I'm disturbed by how controlled many senior managers feel. And I include for example CEOs of large national businesses who still feel crushed by the control of Global layers above. In the Ideas Unlimited shed of ideas, we've been searching to find ways that help people in organisations (even in these times of massive change, economic pressure) create containers in which they can be autonomous; ways in which leaders can still have the assurance they need but in which executors/doers have the freedom to be human again. Is this disturbing anyone else?