Performance Benchmarking and Strategic Change Management

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“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change” Charles Darwin

“To cope with a changing world, an entity must develop the capacity of shifting and changing – of developing new skills and attitudes In short, the capability of learning” A De Gues, The Living Company

Benchmarking for Success realising the benefits of an inclusive strategy for change

Why Benchmark Performance?

Data focuses attention and raises strategic questions Benchmark data can be used as part of strategic planning efforts to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats Descriptive data can be used to understand and monitor changes in the environment of a given organisation

Data allows managers to monitor progress Measuring and benchmarking performance can help managers promote change and monitor progress toward organisational goals Measuring and benchmarking performance can enable the celebration of successes

Benchmarking helps identify Best Practice Output and outcome data can be helpful in identifying best management practices Benchmarking is recognized as a best practice norm by GFOA, GASB, ICMA and other professional organizations.

Using Benchmarking Data Strategically

Eleven Better Practices Creating the Performance Framework Driving Performance Improvement Learning to enhance performance

Creating the Performance Framework What would it mean to do a better job? Practice 1: Articulate the organization’s mission. Proclaim—clearly and frequently—what the organization is trying to accomplish. Practice 2: Identify the organization’s most consequential performance deficit. Determine what key failure is keeping the organization from achieving its mission.

Remember that… “More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause” Jim Cathcart

Creating the Performance Framework Practice 3: Establish a specific performance target. Specify what new level of success the organization needs to achieve next. Practice 4: Clarify your theoretical link between target and mission. Define (for yourself, at least) your mental model that explains how meeting the target will help accomplish the mission.

“leadership is about getting others to do what you want them to do because they want to do it”” Eisenhower

Driving Performance Improvement How can we mobilize our people? Practice 5: Monitor and report progress frequently, personally, and publicly. Publish the data so that every team knows that you know (and that everyone else knows) how well every team is doing. Practice 6: Build operational capacity. Provide your teams with what they need to achieve their targets

Do our people have what they need to meet their goals?

Driving Performance Improvement Practice 7: Take advantage of small wins to reward success. Find lots of reasons to dramatize that you recognize and appreciate what teams have accomplished. Practice 8: Create “esteem opportunities.” Ensure that people can earn a sense of accomplishment and thus gain both self-esteem and the esteem of their peers.

Learning to enhance Improvement How must we change to do even better? Practice 9: Check for distortions and mission accomplishment. Verify that people are achieving their targets in a way that furthers the mission (not in a way that fails to help or actually undermines this effort). Practice 10: Analyze a large number and a wide variety of indicators. Examine many forms of data—both quantitative and qualitative—to learn how your organization can improve.

Learning to enhance Improvement Practice 11: Adjust mission, target, theory, monitoring and reporting, operational capacity, rewards, esteem opportunities, and/or analysis. Act on this learning, making the modifications necessary to ratchet up performance again..

Using benchmarks to effect change: the four key factors for success pressure for change – demonstrated senior management commitment is essential a clear, shared vision – we must take everyone with us. This is a shared agenda that benefits the whole organisation capacity for change – we need to provide the resources, time and finance action – and performance – “plan, do, check, act” – and keep communication channels open

worst practice in managing change “the main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything or nothing” Lady Nancy Astor

worst practice in managing change  lack of consistent leadership  de-motivated staff kept in the dark  lack of capacity: budget cuts, no spend-to-save policy, short term approach to investment, over-stretched staff having to run just to stand still  lack of initiative to ‘do something different’

the tread mill effect  no time for reflection, planning and learning  no improvement in design and implementation  increasing failure andunplanned consequences  increasing need todo ‘something’

worst practice in managing change‘it’s not my job’ ‘I haven’t got time’ ‘the boss doesn’t care anyway’ ‘I’m keeping my head down this time’ ‘if it’s such a good idea, why didn’t we do this the last time management changed its mind?’ ‘it will all change again next month’ ‘when the MD makes his mind up, I might do something’ ‘nobody told me about it’ ’

“businesses are nothing more or less than organisations of people trying to get to a jointly defined future” Professor Howard H Stevenson, Harvard Business School “As a manager, the important thing is not what happens when you are there, but what happens when you are not there” Ken Blanchard

Benchmarking Integrate data into management strategy because it Focuses attention and raises questions Allows you to monitor progress toward specific goals Helps identify best practices and celebrate successes

Performance Benchmarking and Strategic Change Management