Do you need an informal way to convince your coworkers that your organization could benefit from performance management?  That the principles of managing by walking around could improve your organization’s alignment?

Here’s a poem that was written more than 150 years ago that might help:

The Blind Men and The Elephant
John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant
,And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! What have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;“
‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

In a very real sense, each of us is like one of the blind men experiencing the organizational elephant from our own point of view. We do our best to understand our function, our group, or our business unit but we almost never know how what we do fits into the overall organization and thus how we impact others. With our blindfolds firmly in place, we often unintentionally hurt overall performance while making decisions that optimize our portion of the elephant.

The goal of performance management isn’t just to remove the blindfolds so we can finally see entire beast but also to make sure everyone understands how they fit into the coordinated whole. Imagine, for a moment, if everyone in your organization was aligned so that they were pulling in the same direction.

The elephant would be as nimble as a ballerina.

The post Teaching the Elephant to Dance appeared first on Manage By Walking Around.