Performance Management: Changing Corporate Culture

Mark VeerkampPerformance Reporting Coordinator,

Province of Manitoba

CEPMA September 2008

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Performance management too often focuses on producing visible artifacts - reports, measures, plans

Performance reporting/performance management is really an attitude shift

Moving corporate culture from process to outcomes

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Hard to define culture - as a result we don’t pay enough attention to it

Simple definition: “The unwritten rules of a group of

people…”Should add “… that allow that group reproduce itself.”

Those unwritten rules are then encoded in policies, procedures, rules, and laws

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Those rules are reinforced/supported by behaviour of individuals and groups

But what happens when we try to apply rules in the absence of the underlying behaviours?

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

It doesn’t connect People respond in a variety of ways:

ignoring the rules doing the bare minimum and sometimes active

resistance

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Across Canada there is frustration among provinces who are showing progress but feel they aren’t really achieving performance management

Achieving the elements of performance management rather than developing a method or process for changing culture

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

We track our progress on performance reporting by listing the components and evaluating if we have achieved them

But we also need to evaluate ourselves to determine if we are meeting the “cultural” elements

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Element Never Rarely Mostly Always

Customer focusWhere improved outcomes for users and the public are considered at all stages of performance management

‘Can-do’ attitude Where people feel empowered and supported to innovate and take responsibility without fear of being blamed for failure

LearningWhere feedback from staff and users and effective performance monitoring, inform plans for improvement

Performance management as a tool for improvementRather than a form-filling exercise

Source: “Performance Management: a Cultural Revolution” PMMI project January 2006

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.

Peter Drucker

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

How is Manitoba approaching performance reporting?

Rather than legislate a “foreign” program, Manitoba is building from what we have and work in an incremental way to build consent

A mixture of supportive engagement and regulatory requirements such as instructions for plans and reports

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Work towards shared values and have people take personal ownership of the project

We support this approach with rules and policies developed through Treasury Board, but with broad consultation

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Performance reporting principles www.gov.mb.ca/finance/tb/index.html

We got feedback from literally hundreds of people including the OAG and Crowns

When we dialogue with departments our approach is “Here’s our problem… let’s solve it together – what’s your idea?”

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

We used a steering committee to develop guidelines for principles

We hold workshops which are part tutorials, part problem-solving sessions

We’re constantly exploring how we can take existing processes and elements and build on good habits while weeding out bad ones

We are in the process of setting up a performance reporting network

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

We need to work on two aspects the culture

A culture of performance and a culture of performance management - a tool to achieve performance

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

This is a long term process The likelihood of performance

reporting “taking” is much greater where people can discover benefits themselves

We need performance management to “reproduce” itself as an unwritten process

Gov’t does not have a single culture and different approaches are needed

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Where we need to continue to focus efforts:

Encouraging leadership at all levels Reinforcing the government/

departments as learning organizations rather than rigid systems

Continue to improve risk management

Performance Management and Corporate Culture

Comments?