Portions of a presentation made by the late C. Glenn Valentine - one of the original founders of the National Society for Performance and Improvement (now the International Society for Performance Improvement) – who devoted his career to helping worldwide organizations improve performance.
Mr. Valentine used slides for this presentation and the one that appears below is a summary slide that will provide the reader with a visual to refer to while reviewing the text.
There are four areas I want to talk about that relate to managing performance.
To begin with, MEASUREMENT is the ability to measure the outcomes of performance. On the right is a menu of some of these outcomes. The list is not complete and is meant as an example only. All organizations are interested in results or outcomes and each organization will have their own list of key results or outcomes.
Generally, it is best to focus on one or several outcomes at a time and apply a rifle-shot approach, rather than a shot-gun approach to cover all things at once. By concentrating on the “wounded” areas first – those places where there are either opportunities or problems – improvements can be made and the savings applied to addressing the next desired outcomes.
A second important action an organization has to take in managing performance is SETTING TARGETS AND GOALS. Most leaders in a given organizational unit tend to set targets on historical performance and, most of the time, are well below the capability of the unit.
Once targets are set, performing teams have the responsibility of achieving ACTUAL performance as close to the targets as possible. In my experience, I find that often times performance matches or exceeds the targets on a consistent basis. This is a strong indication that the targets were not set high enough. There should always be a DISCREPANCY or GAP, even though small at times, between the goals that are set and the actual performance. In other words, a healthy organizational unit would constantly be playing a “game” where the leaders are raising the targets higher, which raises the discrepancy, while the performers are improving their actuals, thus closing the discrepancy or gap. So, a person observing a unit’s performance should be looking for the pattern of change in the discrepancy or gap.
- Attitudes
- Incentives
- Involvement
Performance Management
Measures
Goals
Actuals
Discrepancies
Organization Outcomes
- Sales
- Revenue
- Products
- Services
- Costs
- Margins/Profits
- Market Share
- Growth
- Quality
- Image
- Customer Service
- ROI
- Revenue Streams
- Value Added
- Input Resources
- Facilities
- Logistics
- Equipment/Software
Factors Influencing Performance
- Training
- Experience
- Skills/Inventories
In summary, there are four critical areas in managing performance:
1. Measuring performance.
2. Setting targets or goals.
3. Improving performance VS actuals or results.
4. Managing the gap or discrepancy between goals and actuals.
- Management
- Systems/Networks
- Patterns/Skills
Through the management of performance and the resulting improvement in performance, the manager of any given unit can:
• Control his environment.
• Reach superior performance that cannot be achieved in any other way.
The factors that influence performance are divided into six categories, as shown on the diagram.
For more information, click on each of the boxes.
Organizations must deal with more information, worker shortages, more complex technology, and stronger competition, particularly from off-shore and third-world developing countries. To do this, organizations must react and respond quickly, be more efficient and profitable, and have every person and unit performing at the highest levels.
© 2013 Webmaster Becky Burne Harvey for George F. Walker Consulting Services LLC, All rights reserved.