Executive
Summary of Performance
"How do you improve people's performance?" Based on
conversations with 5,000 managers around the world this
book provides the answer.
To
start with, forget all the nonsense that personality
determines performance. It doesn't. It's behaviour that
drives performance and personality predicts less than
10% of behaviour.
Secondly
forget all the "born leader" rubbish. Leadership is
about behaviour and behaviour is learned. And thirdly
forget trying to model your (or anyone else's) behaviour
on what Great Leaders have done - unless you have the
same job they have. There is no single set of behaviours
that produces top-level performance in all jobs. Behaviour
is determined by the job. Different jobs require different
behaviour. As jobs change, behaviour has to change to
match the situation. Personality doesn't change - ever.
A thousand children tested at age 3 showed no change
in personality when tested again twenty years later.
So if you can't change your personality and your job
keeps changing, your performance had better be driven
by something you can change, and that's behaviour.
Because
jobs change rapidly and continually it's important to
be able to measure these changes and to identify, in
clear and specific terms, what needs to be done differently
to adapt to them. This book tells you how to do that.
Without clear measurement - of current behaviour, of
targeted behaviour, and of progress between the two
- change is a random process.
Change
is constantly being driven by a whole range of things
like competition, technology, innovation, information,
costs, etc. The question is what you and others need
to do differently to meet these challenges. Where do
you find the answer?
Peter Drucker says the person to ask about what needs
to be done differently to improve performance is the
person doing the job, and companies like Toyota agree.
However you have to know how to ask the question the
right way and this book shows you that way.
The
whole idea of asking people for their ideas and suggestions
- and then accepting them - is foreign to many managers.
They believe they know what needs to be done differently
and they believe their job is to tell people. That's
what being a leader/manager is about isn't it? Unfortunately
people (you included) generally resist being told what
to do. They will accept some direction but tend to bridle
at too much of it. We all think more highly of our own
ideas than the ideas and suggestions of other people.
Therefore because ownership of change is so important,
it works best when it is based on what we call an Ask
Them (AT) approach rather than the far more common Tell
Them (TT) approach. Toyota is a classic AT company;
General Motors is the archetypical TT company. Not much
needs to be said.
Leadership
and Performance
Warren
Buffet says "Our job is to focus on things we know can
make a difference." Trite but true. Leadership is about
making a difference. In simple terms it's about constantly
improving your, and therefore other people's, performance.
Everything you do has the potential to influence the
behaviour of others. Your leadership can therefore be
judged by both what you do and what you influence others
to do. Effective leadership is about behaviour and behaviour
change.
But
there are some subtle differences in the focus of leadership.
First there's a focus on accelerating performance -
moving things forward, creating change, driving a vision,
constantly improving results. But additionally there
is a necessary focus on sustaining performance - ensuring
that systems and processes are maintained, and that
things like quality, customer satisfaction and profitability
remain consistent. Research done in 2004 showed that
on average about 30% of performance is lost due to inadequate
levels of performance sustaining behaviour.
The
balance between performance accelerating and
performance sustaining leadership behaviour is
critical for success both for individuals and organizations.
Too much of the former results in loss of control and
confusion; too much of the latter results in complacency
and stagnation.
There
is also a third set of behaviours, which nobody ever
talks about, but which have a huge effect on performance.
They're performance blocking behaviours. Everyone engages
in them to one degree or another, but they can, and
must, be confronted and controlled. They're ubiquitous
because they're caused by the various pressures and
stresses jobs exert on people. But the energy and effort
that goes into them can be re-channelled into performance
accelerating and sustaining behaviour, and that has
a massive effect on performance. This book shows how
to do that.
The
test
