From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I raised my hand in your workshop the other day when you asked if we believed in “results based performance.” You indicated that was misguided. And I stopped listening. Now that the workshop is over, I think you’re right, but now, I am not sure why?

Response:
Results based performance is a misguided management concept with two sources. Over the past three decades (I can’t remember further back), there has been a focus on results, management for results. Results are important, they are the endpoint of the goal, but if our focus is solely on the outcome, we might lose our way in getting there.

The first source of this focus is an abandonment of management related to the activities that lead to the goal. It is as if to say, “I don’t know how to manage the process and I don’t how to manage the people in the process, so I will simply use the result as my objective measure of effectiveness.”

The second source of this focus is a politically correct attitude that people should not judge other people. Many current management fads adopt the position that we should not judge people, only output. These fads have weaned us away from managerial judgment. As if to say, “Let the facts stand for themselves, if the sale was made, then the salesperson must have been doing a good job. If the sale was lost, then the salesperson must have been doing a poor job.”

Abdicating our managerial judgment to an “objective” measure of success is baloney. It also delays the time when the manager must step in and take corrective action when things go off course. If we are to evaluate effectiveness based only on the objective result, then we must wait until the result is known. The truth is, most managers know early on when a project is off course. They don’t have to wait for the result.

If a team member is working on a 12 month time span project, the manager can tell quickly if the team member is making the right moves in the first two weeks. But, if we say we have to wait for the outcome, the manager is hobbled, loathe to intervene. If there is anything that Elliott trusted, it was the judgment of a manager.

But that’s subjective, you say. Yes, it is subjective. And highly accurate.