1  2 

Performance or compliance: What are managers managing?

Business owners and managers who pride themselves on their tough, take-no-prisoners approach will argue that their staff are productive because they are tough managers. At the same time, they will lament their shrinking margins and tell all who will listen how tough it is to make a profit in today’s economic climate. Bernard Koch argues that the two are interlinked, that their people are not so much “productive” as “compliant”, and that their rising operating costs are as much a result of counter-productive people management styles as they are of the economic conditions themselves.

by Bernard Koch

Bernard Koch is a Management Consultant, Motivational Facilitator and Executive Coach with a specific emphasis on Culture Transformation and Sustainable Behaviour Change at both an individual and a team level. He has developed his thinking, processes and methodology over 25 years in business. He has operated at Managing Director level, as the Senior Manager of a large well known Managing Consulting Firm, and more recently as a Shareholder and Director in charge of shared services for a large Civil Engineering Consulting firm. Bernard’s approach is based on two truisms: that culture drives performance, and that leadership influences culture. Bernard is currently the Executive respsible for Organisational and Leadership Development at LabourNet.

The other day, a business acquaintance and I were discussing some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that we had developed for a client of mine. My colleague honed in on one KPI in particular and rightfully questioned its SMARTness. Of concern to him was how much influence the employee had over the KPI in question.

The industry in question is the advertising industry. Of critical importance to advertising agencies, among other things, are Creative Circle points, a sort of league table of all the different awards that are on offer for creative excellence. In this particular case, the CEO was adamant that the Creative Director, and other key creative staff, should be measured based on the agency’s position on the Creative Points table.

The debate bounced backwards and forwards between what is definable and measurable on the one hand, the so-called and much vaunted SMART goals, and that which is critical to the survival and success of the industry on the other. How is it, questioned my colleague, that someone’s career can be at the mercy of something so subjective? At this point, a reader with deep experience in the advertising industry may point out that creative excellence in said industry is not as subjective as us mere consumers may think. That, however, is not the point of this debate or this article.

My colleague further suggested that, should the Creative Director be fired if he failed to achieve the award objectives of the agency, the agency would have difficulty defending their decision to the CCMA. Instead, he should be measured on a more definable goal, such as to how many and which awards organisations he had submitted his creative work.

Human beings have, through the ages, found creative means to build shelter and find food for one reason only: they HAD to survive. However, this same species has become the dominant species in the world today for an entirely different reason ... they WANTED to survive. This is the fundamental difference between those individuals who and organisations which merely survive, and those that succeed. The former are predominantly Noradrenaline driven and the latter predominantly Dopamine driven.

Napoleon disparagingly referred to England as a “nation of shopkeepers”. However, the small business principle largely bred what became one of the most famous world empires of all time. Through its small business culture, the country's manufacturing capacity was greater than that of most of its European counterparts, so that there was a higher per capita income and, consequently, a greater tax base, necessary to fund the expansion ambitions of the realm. »

1  2