Telling Government workers to submit  five things they have achievements over the last week or face dismissal is provocative, implies that their new boss is questioning their productivity and effectiveness and is a clear indication of the type of management style they can expect. It’s clearly bad management and demotivating leadership. However introducing a performance culture can be a very positive move, it’s all about the intension behind it. The stick or the carrot, name and shame or praise and raise.

I took up a new post in a new organisation. In the first week I organised a team workshop for managers and asked them to identify 5 recent achievements.  The difference was that I also asked them in groups to list their top 5 priorities and 5 challenges. My message was not prove to me why I should keep most of you but I want to learn more about your part of the organisation, what obstacles you may need my help  to overcome and get agreement on the way forward.

It worked , together we were able to reorganise services, deliver some necessary but unpopular cuts and achieve the required budget savings in a relatively short time whilst making people feel more positive about their future. People were receptive to benchmarking as a way of comparing ourself to the best and learning what they did that we could copy to improve our performance. We set targets, measured progress and celebrated success.

I’m making this sound easy it wasn’t it was hard, we had to gain people’s trust , we had to over come cynicism , we had to negotiate and make compromises and we had on more than one occasion to convince a sceptical the board that with their support we could deliver. Throughout we talked about achievements, targets, performance indicators and league tables demonstrating that this language  does not have to be threatening and demoralising but can be rewarding and motivating.