Page 288 - Performance Leadership

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Performance comes from Venus, but management from Mars.

Before you started reading this book, performance management prob-
ably looked like a straightforward, top-down process: make sure every-
one understands the corporate objectives, put plans in place, measure
outcomes, and adjust where needed. And then this book discusses the
next level, performance leadership, introducing among other things
business interfaces, performance networks, expanding the focus to
include all stakeholders, and dealing with conflicting requirements.
That’s a tall order. It’s a great idea, but is it only for the distant future?
Is it wonderful only for that handful of organizations at the bleeding
edge? Probably not. The principles of performance leadership are for
everyone.
One of the lessons of the book is that copying best practices gets you
only so far. We all know that from our personal lives too. Have you ever
asked an older brother or sister to do your homework for you? And how
well did you do on the test afterward? Dr. Stephen Covey, on whose
lessons this book heavily relies, teaches us that we all have a choice and
a responsibility for those choices. He also teaches us how to increase our
circle of influence, our own performance network. Covey teaches us to
think for ourselves. There are no typical “12 steps to success.” There is
no magic recipe for successful personal relationship or personal devel-
opment. I have closely examined the best practices, sometimes defied
conventional wisdom, and constructed a set of tools that allow us to

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