Page 167 - Performance Leadership

156 • Part III Principles from the Values and Social Dimensions

customer focus. This company has a very different decision-making
process. Senior management will ask for input from a few trusted
employees, and then the family will make a decision. There are per-
formance indicators, but these are mostly aimed at how the company
is performing in the eyes of the customers. Information is shared with
the staff, but usually verbally in informal meetings. Rewards are not
directly tied to performance in a specific period; the family rewards loy-
alty and provides bonuses when deemed necessary.
It needs to be made clear that cultural alignment doesn’t always guar-
antee success. For instance, if company 2 is making a loss, perhaps some
elements of the performance management practices of company 1 need
to be adopted. Conversely, if company 1 is going through an extreme
growth phase, key people need to be retained to manage that growth,
and these staff members must feel part of the inner circle.
The cultural performance management analysis shows that the cor-
porate culture drives how performance management should be imple-
mented. But it also works the other way around, as measurement drives
behavior. If there are cultural aspects that are undesirable, a measure-
ment process might change that. If there is too much of a group focus,
individual performance indicators may help. If there is too much of a
long-term focus, short-term targets may help. If relationship focus turns
into nepotism, more uniform reward processes may be needed. Per-
formance management becomes change management, and dealing
with undesirable behaviors is part of that.
In any case, ignoring the cultural aspects may easily lead to unpre-
dictable behaviors. This will lead to misalignment between the self
(behaviors) and the self-perception (management) of the organization.
And if that continues long enough, that will lead to misalignment with
the external perception (what we say we do versus what we really do).

Alignment

Understanding the values and the culture of the organization helps
bridge the gap between the self and the self-perception of the organi-
zation. The values and culture of the organization represent the self of
the organization; both drive behaviors, along with measurement. Per-
formance management should take values and culture into account,