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Management gurus like Peter Drucker have
long since put to bed the idea that measuring
performance really does improve performance
signifcantly more than if you don’t measure.
But this isn’t the reason driving most people’s
participation in performance measurement.
Let’s look at a few of the most common
reasons and see how compelling they are.
Reason 1: Because you’re
supposed to.
We’ve been told to have performance measures by
our managers. The Strategy Ofce expects us to come
up with some KPIs to go in the KPI column in the
business plan. Everyone else seems to be measuring
stuf so we probably should too. Let’s just get it done
and over with as quickly as we can. What data do we
have? Maybe we can throw a few KPIs together real
quick...
It’s little wonder then, that, to many people,
performance measurement always feels like another
corporate hoop to jump through that takes up time
they should be spending on their “real work”.
Reason 2: To CYA (cover your arse/
ass).
Show you’re doing lots of work, doing good things,
getting heaps of stuf done. Then maybe managers
will stop changing things on you all the time or stop
putting pressure on you to work harder, work smarter,
streamline this, reengineer that.
All you have to do is to fnd a few measures that
always have positive trends and show how well things
are going. Measurement drives behaviour, so where
do you think people will prioritise their time and
attention when they measure the things that are easy
to improve?
Reason 3: To manage staff
performance.
Everyone has some KPIs in their performance
agreements. And targets. That should make it a lot
Why do You
Measure
Performance?
Stacey Barr