Oscar Wilde once said, “Moderation is
fatal. Nothing succeeds like excess.” Maybe he was right, although it is
difficult to judge without knowing the context of the remark. It seems more
likely, however, that the opposite is true: namely that excess is fatal because
it will always ultimately end in failure, no matter how successful it may
initially seem, or how benign the activity.
Take performance measurement for instance. This appears to be an area that
is getting excessive attention and where a rigid – almost religious – fervour is
having disastrous side-effects. Few can doubt that wrong performance measures
are driving wrong behaviours.
You only have to look at the banking industry for evidence of this. How else
do you explain the recent, massive fines it has incurred? But, if the banks are
too easy a target, take the NHS. Following earlier reports
that 3,000 people had died unnecessarily in the past year, (the same number as
died in 9/11!), this week saw the publication of the Keogh
Report that identified such significant failings in 14 out of 146 acute NHS
hospital trusts (10%) that 11 have been placed under special measures.
If you consider that people who go into the
medical profession do so because they care for their fellow human beings and
want to make a difference, this is a sure sign that something has gone
disastrously wrong somewhere. The likelihood is that the performance measures
are in the mix somehow and while I
have no experience in this field, the
horrendous stories I have heard, first-hand from people who have experienced the lack of compassion and
care in one of those hospitals, certainly bear this
out.
Thus you cannot help wonder if we have become fixated with performance
measures to the point of excess? The time and effort that is spent identifying,
collecting and collating the information is bad enough. But on top of that
there is the validation, verification and review of that information, all of
which takes time from the more important aspect of actually doing. Yet, this
obsession with performance measurement is rooted in performance related pay and
is further evidence of research that indicates that incentives are actually
counter-productive.
People are the best judges and critics of their own performance. With clear
direction and some autonomy they will happily get on with their work. They
don’t need – and most likely resent – efforts to continuously monitor, measure
and judge them. It is no wonder then that employee engagement figures are so
poor. In fact you would have to say the NHS performance is indicative of disengaged
people, especially if you use the common sense definition of employee engagement
espoused by Gallup’s Jim
Harter. So why devote so much time
to finding new methods to measure and reward their performance? It is a waste
of their time and yours, for how much time do you spend managing performance? It’s
like trying to squeeze a balloon: it simply distorts things and makes life more
difficult for everyone.
At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, the
solution is simple: give your people the autonomy they need and an ownership
stake whereby they share equitably in the organisation’s performance. That will
guarantee a more successful organisation, especially in the long-term, and
without so many of the ups and downs along the way.