Archive for the ‘Performance Leadership’ Category
#49 Underperformance Needs A Relentless Solution Focus
In his book, “10-Minute Toughness”, sports psychologist Jason Selk says:
“…people spend too much time aiming at the bull’s-eye and not enough time shooting at it. Rather than placing so much emphasis on getting ready and aiming, go ahead and take a shot. Taking the shot gets you started and also lets you gauge how far off the mark you are. Make adjustments, but keep shooting until you get closer and closer, and eventually you will hit the bull’s-eye.”
In business performance management, this means we need to get comfortable with failing before we’ll truly succeed. We need to stare our weaknesses and problems and obstacles straight in the eye and attack them with solutions until they yield to our intentions for high performance. But this means changing a mindset that’s endemic, menacing and unconsciously ingrained in management culture: making excuses.
#46 Why You Can’t Measure Your Performance Outcomes…
One of the worst immeasurability problems with strategy is the excessive use of ‘weasely’ language. And you’ll know what I mean if your strategy is full of words like efficiency, productivity, sustainability, or even performance outcomes.
Wikipedia explains what weasel words are:
The expression weasel word derives from the egg-eating habits of weasels… An egg that a weasel has sucked will look intact to the casual observer, while actually being empty. Thus, words or claims that turn out to be empty upon analysis are known as “weasel words”. The expression first appeared in Stewart Chaplin’s short story ‘Stained Glass Political Platform’ (published in 1900 in The Century Magazine,… in which they were referred to as “words that suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks the egg and leaves the shell.” Theodore Roosevelt attributed the term to Dave Sewall, claiming that Sewall used the term in a private conversation in 1879…
#45 Five Principles For Performance Measurement Excellence (Lessons From Running)
Just as the principle of leverage can apply to many different situations and contexts, from bicycles to business process reengineering, the lessons I’m learning from my running coach, Rina, and other world-class athletes also seem to apply to my work as a Performance Measurement Practitioner. The pursuit of excellence in anything, it seems, is based on a core set of principles.
#44 Do Your Colleagues Have the Wrong Idea About KPIs and Measurement?
Possibly at the root of all objections people have to measuring performance and having KPIs is their beliefs about why we do it. Before you can successfully overcome all the other typical objections people have – like not having the time, not knowing where to start, not seeing the need for it – you need to be sure first and foremost that people understand the real reasons why we measure performance.
#43 Where Is Your Performance Measurement Process Breaking Down? (Part 2 of 2)
It’s a great idea to diagnose where your own performance measurement process might be in most need of improvement, because if you want more meaningful performance measures and KPIs, you need to change the process that you use to produce them.
#42 Where Is Your Performance Measurement Process Breaking Down? (Part 1 of 2)
There are many, many symptoms of a broken performance measurement process, and while I don’t particularly want to dwell too long on this topic, you might find it useful to have a quick reference list of most typical of these symptoms.
It can be useful for you to diagnose where your own performance measurement process might be in most need of attention, and can also provide a discussion point to get your colleagues and staff to start thinking differently about how to make measurement work.
Here’s my checklist of 36 most common symptoms of a performance measurement process breaking down:
#41 Develop Your Authenticity As A Performance Measurement Expert
There are at least three good reasons why your authenticity as a performance measurement practitioner really matters. Firstly, people need quite a bit of coaching before they’ll trust performance measurement. Secondly, you’re going to need an energy source to persist until people stop resisting measuring. Thirdly, inspiration works much better than edict at engaging people to measure. Your authenticity boosts all these things.
Want to know how to boost your authenticity?
#40 A Week in the Life of a Happy Performance Measurement Practitioner
Let’s take a peek at what a typical week might hold for a happy Performance Measurement Practitioner:
#39 QUIZ: Have You Got What It Takes To Be A Performance Measurement Leader?
There are no professional guidelines (yet) which define what it means to be a Performance Measurement Practitioner – not like there are for Accountants, Project Managers, Finance Officers and Engineers. So there’s little wonder that there are so many talented and capable performance measurement practitioners out there who are underselling themselves.
Are you one of them? Find out with this quiz:
#38 Do You Really Need A Corporate Performance Office?
They’re popping up like mushrooms after ground-soaking rains: the Corporate Performance Office, a small team of people devoted to developing, coordinating, and facilitating their organisation’s performance measurement and management system, from top to bottom, left to right, and back to front. But do YOU really need one too?
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