Performance comes from Venus, management from Mars

Performance has everything to do with passion, motivation, dedication, skills, teamwork. Performance is about People. Management is all about control, procedures, guidelines and regulations. Management is about processes and systems. In other words, Performance comes from Venus, and Management from Mars.

Seen this way, ‘performance management’ is a bit of a contradiction in terms. I have been exploring this idea for the last three years, and many of the posts in this blog have been inspired by this journey. And this journey has had a deliverable that I am very proud of…

In 2008, my book called “Performance Leadership” has come out. It is published by McGraw-Hill and it is available world-wide.

Often, people start to behave strangely when confronted with performance indicators, management reports and targets. They sit back after the target is made, and push things to the next year, or start spending excess budget as much as they can. Management sometimes spend more time explaining why certain numbers are not right, instead of trying to increase sales. And people have endless creative ways of playing the numbers.

This goes for people and their behaviors within the organization, but also for organizations in relation to their environment, their stakeholders.

What would happen if we apply lessons in the field of personal development to performance management? Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) teaches us that people should ideally develop on four dimensions. The physical dimension is needed to stay healthy, and have energy for the other dimensions. The mental dimension helps us get ahead: where are we now, where do we want to be, how do we get there? The social and emotional dimension helps to develop ourselves as balanced people who are an asset to their environment. The spiritual dimensions, lastly, helps us to think about what we stand for, or in other words, what we want to be remembered for. 

How does that translate to performance management? The physical dimension is comparable to managing day-to-day operation. These must be efficient, so that there can be the appropriate management attention for improvement and innovation. The mental dimension nicely dovetails with strategy, asking yourself the same question: where are you now, where do you want to be, how will you get there? But that is where performance management usually stops, it’s all we ask ourselves. And as organizations are living organisms, according to the Covey-parallel, we leave half on the table.

How do we manage the social dimension of the organization? How do we make sure that the value we add, is not substracted somewhere else? Are we really running a transparent and responsible business? At first glance, talk about the spiritual dimension seems far-fetched, but it isn’t. Every organization has core values, has a certain culture, attrachts certain people and has a certain image. This describes what the organization stands for, which has a huge impact on the bottom line. 

Do you want to know more? Check out www.frankbuytendijk.com.

Can’t wait to hear your feedback…