Performance management is more popular than ever; it’s practically an epidemic. Just a few years ago there were only three or four conferences dedicated to the topic. So far this year I’ve already been to 10 and the conference season doesn’t even get into full swing until later this month. Why the extraordinary rise in…
Author Archive | Jonathan Becher
Understanding Quality in Performance Management
In my experience, most people don’t really understand how to track quality in a performance management system. Over the years, I’ve seen the strategic objectives and KPIs for dozens of organizations; large and small, commercial and public sector, US and International. I’ve previously claimed customer satisfaction is one of the most used – and least…
In Search of Profits
One of the recurring themes during my week at HBS was understanding profitability. At first glance, profitability seems like a seductively simple topic. After all, aren’t profits just sales minus costs? The issue is that getting a handle on costs is a non-trivial exercise. For many organizations, the cost of goods sold (COGS) only represents the direct,…
Balancing Control and Empowerment
One of the first articles we had to read during my recent HBS class was “Control in an Age of Empowerment” by Robert Simons. Even though the article was published in Harvard Business Review more than 10 years ago, I had never read it before and a quick poll of my classmates suggests very few…
No Time To Think
In No Time to Think, Jack Trout claims we’ve become “a world of reactors, not thinkers.” In case you don’t recognize his name, Trout is the author of many marketing classics, including one of my personal favorites ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing‘ which describes the First Mover Advantage. While technology was supposed to make us…
HBS and CPM
Because it’s been an uncharacteristic two full weeks since my last post, I thought I’d give everyone a quick update on what I’ve been up to. (No, Jerry, I haven’t decided to give up blogging, move to the Bahamas, and take up sailing.) I was a vacation during the week of July 4th – no…
Performance Gaps
An operations manager stops by your office (he’s managing by walking around) and says he has good news and bad news. The good news is that the company shipped more widgets to customers last quarter than it did the previous quarter but the bad news is that executive management thinks that we performed worse. How…
Dilbert strikes again
How many strategy management mistakes can you count? 1. Failure to adequately communicate the strategy 2. Failure to explain how the strategy impacts individuals 3. No formal cascade of objectives between high-level strategy (pointy haired boss) and next level down (Dilbert) 4. No way to monitor progress towards achieving objectives Did I miss any?
Strategy Management
The recent resurfacing of the BI vs. PM controversy got me thinking about the longstanding confusion between financial, workforce, and IT performance management. When most people hear the term performance management, they think of what I might describe as human capital management. That is clearly different than budgeting, planning, and consolidation. The multiple uses of…
A Rose By Any Other Name
Last week I weighed in on the on-going debate as to whether PM is the same thing as BI. The Performance Guys seemed to agree with my assessment and echoed my belief that performance management involves motivation, not just monitoring and measuring. I’d only point out that motivation doesn’t necessarily require money; I once did…