Excerpt
Defining Performance Management
If you type the words performance management into a browser and you will get approximately 29,800,000 results. For our discussion we will define performance management as a method used by organizations to motivate employees to achieve desired objectives. Performance management systems are used to implement executive visions, company missions, and short term planning; the goals and objectives in organizations.
For performance management systems to work in the Art of Alignment® model, top management is tasked with providing direction concerning goals, and targets for the goals, to all levels of management and supervision. Top management, however, must delegate the method planning process for accomplishing the goals and objectives targets to subordinate employees, the lower level management and supervision.
Performance management, as a function of the senior planning process in an organization striving to become Lean, helps Lean initiatives, or planned change move the company closer to the ultimate Principle of Lean, perfection. All Lean initiatives taken in a company, including changes in customer focus through seeking value definition from the customer, mapping value streams to untangle bottlenecks in flowing the product to the customer, introducing pull systems; all this is done in pursuit of perfection. The closer a company gets to perfection, the closer it is to satisfying or fulfilling its mission, and recognizing executive visions. Not being able to get close to perfection in most companies is the reason I wrote this book. The Missing Principle of Lean The Art of Tactical Alignment® seeks to help companies move toward perfection by keeping all employees engaged in the process, and their focus on the mission. Performance management is about tying all employees at all levels of the organization to the same goals, objectives, and targets, to be successful and achieve the company mission.
Many authors who write about Lean, educators teaching the subject, Lean coordinators, and consultants, spend some effort in mentioning worker involvement or collaboration in Lean organizations. This book is specifically focused to include all employees who must implement and sustain Lean initiatives. We must never loose sight that Lean Principles involve a human element as well as a technical element. In this type of Socio-Technical environment, neither is more important than the other. However, the way people are directed, and delegated to, and treated in an organization is as important to Lean as how the product is flowed to the customer.
Have you ever thought about the phrase “happy workers are productive workers?” For this reason the Art of Alignment® model is constructed using a participative performance management system. I might note at this point that when I suggest worker involvement in a participative system is important to the direction and delegation tasks of senior management, and collaboration between senior management and the tactical workers must be a two way street, I also want to acknowledge that I am not speaking about giving away the shop. The Art of Alignment® model maintains a high degree of control for managers at all levels. In the real world of business many managers prefer delegation over direction, but the managers are quite aware you can only delegate the task, but never the responsibility. Is it any wonder that in the Lean Enterprise Institute Survey on the State of Lean (2007), middle management resistance to Lean has taken over first place as the top obstacle to implementing Lean?¹ Prior to 2007, backsliding to old ways of work was the number one obstacle.
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