Most leaders trying to improve organizational performance will look at culture as a limiting factor. They run workshops, rewrite value statements, and work to shift mindsets in the hopes of installing a performance based culture. Yet performance doesn't change — or changes briefly, and then reverts back. The reason: culture is a symptom, not a cause, of how organizations manage and use performance. It's not the right lever.

Strategy execution can drift even after the strategy has been documented, cascaded, and communicated. In this webcast replay, Stacey Barr and Brook Rolter discuss why alignment breaks down, how teams interpret strategy differently, and how a Results Map helps connect initiatives, evidence, and strategic results.

When built in from the start, performance measurement provides the basis for managing results, not just reporting activity. Organizations often treat performance measurement as a reporting and compliance task. Most strategy execution and management frameworks place it at the end of the cycle, as a final review step. So once strategy is developed, goals are set and work is underway, attention turns to measurement, and leadership asks for KPIs and status reports to go back up t

Leadership teams review performance constantly, yet many still can’t answer two basic questions: Are we achieving the results we intended? And is our strategy actually working, or are we just busy executing it? It’s rarely a failure of effort. It’s a failure of evidence.

A colleague of mine, Peter Ndaa, who works across Africa and the Middle East, published an article worth reading: The Performance Paradox HR Leaders Can No Longer Ignore. Peter's central point is straightforward: performance isn't just a number, it's a system that is shaped by how measures get used in conversations, decisions, and the consequences that follow. And when organizational performance data is used to judge individuals, the system backfires. I've seen this play ou

Too many organizations struggle to create meaningful KPIs because leaders delegate their design to people without the full strategic intent behind the goals.

A conversation with Stacey Barr reflecting on PuMP’s development, evolution, and enduring relevance.

Metricide is a condition in which an organization’s performance measurement efforts do not provide credible evidence of whether strategy is producing the results intended. Performance measurement no longer serves its core purpose of helping leaders steer strategy and execution. Even organizations that invest in measures, dashboards, reports and structured reviews, may still not be able to answer the fundamental leadership questions raised in a strategy review.

Readiness measures build confidence for today, Performance measures provide control over results tomorrow. Both are essential for managing real organizational performance.

Leaders want evidence that strategy is working, not just reports of activity. Watch the replay of our webcast with Stacey Barr and Kathy Letendre exploring how leaders can measure strategic progress with PuMP. We introduce four types of progress measures that help organizations move from reporting motion to demonstrating results. Download the summary to see how balancing activity, impact, effort, and leverage leads to meaningful improvement.