Fear of Accountability and Blame: Culture plays a massive role in whether performance gets measured. In many organizations, there is an implicit fear of measurement, employees and managers worry that transparent metrics will be used to assign blame for shortfalls. This can create resistance to measuring. For example, performance consultants have observed what they call “PMO Phobia,” where people go to great lengths to avoid measurement because of anxiety about the consequences. Common symptoms include claims that “you can’t measure that” whenever an important but challenging metric is proposed. With reference to a reluctance to report bad results, Mark Hocknell, a KPI expert, notes indicator phrases that highlights this fear, such as staff saying, “We can’t report that measure, because the execs won’t like it, nobody wants bad news” (how many time have you heard that one) or “You can’t measure that, we’d be setting ourselves up for failure.” In a blame-oriented culture, people prefer to “measure only what they directly control” [7] or what makes them look good, rather than broader outcomes that might reveal underperformance. This fear leads to selective measurement or avoidance of metrics altogether, undermining any holistic performance tracking.
Lack of Measurement Mindset: Even in the absent overt fear, some organizational cultures simply do not value data and measurement. A Gartner study found only 31% of organizations feel they have a strong data-driven culture [1]. In cultures where decisions are traditionally made by hierarchy, intuition or experience, introducing systematic metrics is a big change. Employees might see it as extra bureaucracy or as questioning their professional judgment. Performance measurement is sometimes viewed as a disruptive “change” rather than a normal part of business management. Stacey Barr, a performance measurement specialist, argues that many companies fail to make measurement a habit, they see it as a painful change process and “it’s easier not to do it and keep pretending things are fine without it.” [8] In such environments, there may be passive resistance or lack of enthusiasm for tracking results. The organization continues with business-as-usual, relying on anecdotal success stories or financial outcomes to gauge performance, instead of hard metrics, which could end up with senior management pulling the wrong leaver, how many time has your company rationalised the work force or reorganised lately? I’ve seen so many good people force out of grate companies all because senior management hasn’t the tools, systems, methodology or mindset to understand that they are handing their best assists to the competition and that their other leavers they can pull that are more cost effective and strength the organisation both culturally and financially.
Short-Term Focus and Firefighting: Culture can also be influenced by a short-term mentality. If the organizational norm is to focus on immediate tasks and crisis management “firefighting”, there is little patience for the reflective practice of measurement. Setting up KPIs, collecting data and analysing trends is a long-term investment that might not show immediate payoff. Companies with a reactive culture may view organizational performance as a distraction from “real work.” This is reinforced when “traditional” reward systems only recognize short-term outputs (like hitting this month’s targets), the top 10% or bottom 20% and not longer-term improvements in process or capability. In such cases, employees don’t see a direct benefit to measuring and improving broader performance indicators, so the culture doesn’t demand it. Over time, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, of restricting, rationalisation, hiring and firing. Subsequently, lack of rewards or incentives for engaging with organisational performance metrics is identified as a barrier to successful measurement systems. If no one gets credit for monitoring or improving a performance metrics, people will ignore them.
Data Scepticism and Metric Fatigue: Another cultural challenge is scepticism about metrics, sometimes caused by past negative experiences, let’s be honest, we have all had them. If an organization has tried measuring performance and it led to unintended consequences (for example, fostering internal competition or gaming of numbers (can you think of a time you saw this and what the consequences of it where?), employees may become cynical about the value of metrics (no!). There is also the issue of “metric fatigue,” where organizations flood employees with too many measures and reports. Without a clear focus, an excess of indicators can overwhelm and disengage people. They may start questioning the accuracy or relevance of the data, leading to apathy toward measurement. In some industries, front-line staff feel that measurement initiatives come and go as management fads. Such scepticism can erode the cultural foundation needed to sustain organisational performance measurement. Building a healthy measurement culture requires trust that metrics will be used constructively (for learning and improvement, not punishment) something that many organizations struggle to establish.
In the next post in this series we will be looking at the Strategic and Leadership Barriers
References
[1] What are the key challenges in measuring and evaluating organizational performance? https://humansmart.com.mx/en/blogs/blog-what-are-the-key-challenges-in-measuring-and-evaluating-organizational-performance-57020
[2] Office of Personnel Management (OPM) (1999). “Good Measurement Makes a Difference in Organizational Performance.”https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/measuring/good-measurement-makes-a-difference-in-organizational-performance/
[3] Examples & Success Stories, Balanced Scorecard Institute https://balancedscorecard.org/bsc-basics/examples-success-stories/
[4] Bain & Co. survey Ivey Business Journal (2004). “The Balanced Scorecard: To Adopt or Not to Adopt?” https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/the-balanced-scorecard-to-adopt-or-not-to-adopt
[5] Balanced Scorecard: How Many Companies Use This Tool? https://bernardmarr.com/balanced-scorecard-how-many-companies-use-this-tool/
[6] WHY MEASUREMENT INITIATIVES FAIL EconBiz https://www.econbiz.de/Record/why-measurement-initiatives-fail-neely-andy/10014930511
[7] PM'O'Phobia (or: the fear of performance measurement), Mark Hocknell | Customer Value. Business Results (WARNING website flags riskware so no link provided)
Please note that parts of this post were assisted by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool. The AI has been used to generate certain content and provide information synthesis. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy, the AI's contributions are based on its training data and algorithms and should be considered as supplementary information.
Comments
Post a Comment