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.

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.

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.

Being called to serve on jury duty this 4th of July week reminded me of the importance of service in our country and how it takes many...