Beyond Performance Management

Why Integrated Performance Support Processes Are Replacing Traditional Performance Management Strategies

By Chuck McVinney
© 2000 McVinney & Company

New Times, New Measures

Uncertain or ambiguous times lead to the need to develop more interdependent work styles, more effective interpersonal relationships, and better teamwork. At the same time, individuals still need to take initiative and focus their energy on personal productivity. Productivity means a lot more than how many widgets can be produced, though. Now it refers to how well we can acquire skills and knowledge, how much better are working relationships are, and how well we handle the exponentially more sophisticated business and technology forces at work on a local and global basis.

Add to these the fully leveraged and expressed work force of the turn of the Century economy; changing worker expectations; expanded opportunities for growth and learning; the emergence of huge multi-national corporations (along with the counterpart development of aggressive start up activities), and you begin to see the equation for change that drives the contemporary workplace. Next to all this is the tilt toward measuring output as qualitative not just quantitative. This shift will define new terms of engagement between employee and company and company and customers as the question of organizational and environmental sustainability begins to become a more central concern.

Finally, because of the dynamics of the technology based, knowledge and information driven nature of work, we find that performance, generally defined as timeliness and quantity of output, can't actually be managed by anyone, except maybe the individual himself. While work is more integrated and more interdependent, the worker is paradoxically more independent and empowered. While work is more technically specific, the applications and opportunities it provides are more decentralized, creative and virtually unpredictable.>>