BUSINESS

Interview: Finding the Power in Performance Management

July 12, 2006

On May 10, more than 400 government professionals gathered in Washington, DC, for the third annual Cognos Government Forum. Throughout the day these professionals were treated to keynotes from legendary newsman Ted Koppel and performance management visionary Dr. Shelley Metzenbaum.

In her Keynote address, Dr. Metzenbaum outlined how the use of performance goals and measures can be leveraged to better the lives of constituents, champion democracy, and provide a powerful management tool for government. Here, she shares her passion for performance management with Kelsey Howarth, Senior Writer for Cognos, an IBM company.

The essence of good government

KH: You state that proper performance management actually strengthens democracy. How so?

SHM: "A primary mandate of good government is to encourage debate about priorities. Setting goals begins a conversation with the public. Goals articulate what the priorities are, and measurement indicates how well government is accomplishing them. If citizens and their elected representative disagree with the priorities or are unhappy with progress, they can press for change. This is the essence of the democratic process, a process that thrives on an open dialogue with the public.

Performance management also illuminates: it shares the who, what, and where. It helps monitor conditions, locate problems, and find successful solutions that governments can replicate. Performance Management also helps inform choice – electoral and consumer. In addition, performance management strengthens fiscal and ethical accountability, essential to good government. These are all hallmarks of a healthy, vibrant democracy."

Empowering and inspiring

KH: You feel that government agencies "waste a valuable opportunity to use performance management if they simply focus on compliance." How should they be using performance management?

SHM: "Governments miss the rich value of performance management if they are using it only to comply. While compliance is essential, it doesn't have the power to inspire people or tap into their altruistic nature.

As an example, if I want to get people to be safer in their homes I can legislate that they lock their doors. If they comply that's a good thing, but really what I wanted them to do was think about all the ways they can be safer in their homes. I have made them safer, but missed the opportunity to encourage them to think about problems and solutions."

Finding the right attitude

KH: You talk about agencies getting out of crisis response and developing an "analytic attitude." What do you mean by this?

SHM: "Governments today from the top down operate in response mode. Agency officials are so busy responding to the fire drill of the day, for data, for explanations. These drills are normal requests from elected officials, the media, others, but they can consume huge amounts of agency time. Agencies take on a crisis management mode, rather than taking the time to look for the causes of the fire drills and whether anything can be done to reduce them.

If agencies adopt an analytic attitude and look closely both at the social problems and their time-consuming fire drills-if they count and characterize the problems-it encourages the search for the causes. It enables more creative thinking about solutions and, even more important, can ultimately reduce the number and seriousness of these unwanted incidents.

Performance management and the analytic attitude that stems from setting and using outcome-focused goals and measurement is one of government's top tools. It enables people to focus on issues, decide how much time and resources to dedicate to each, authorize appropriate action, and constantly encourage the search for new insights to lessen problems and improve conditions."

Inspiring your people

KH: You strongly caution organizations to view metrics as an opportunity rather than punishment. Is this a common perception/fear when these initiatives are introduced?

SHM: "It can be, and this is one of the strongest messages I try to impart. Goals and measures are meant to inspire people – not punish them. There is an instinct to use them to hold people accountable. No one ever says what accountability means, but it implies you will be punished if you miss a target. We need to focus on the spirit of inquiry that goals and measures are supposed to tap into.

If we ask people to try to achieve great things, then missed goals are to be expected. If we focus on punishment, we ensure that the bar will be set so low to guarantee success and whatever you are trying to achieve will always fall short of what could have been accomplished. For example, if I set a goal to reduce water pollution by 50 percent and you only reduce it by 25 percent, you have actually accomplished something wondrous for the planet, but have failed to meet your target.

Performance management, in its best sense, helps us find a path forward. It is for this reason that I cannot urge strongly enough that these measures are used to foster communication, motivation, feedback, learning, enlistment, alignment, and coordination. These are the actions that keep government in touch with the people."

About Dr. Shelley Metzenbaum

Dr. Metzenbaum is a Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, where she leads a consortium that brings state agencies together to develop better ways to measure and manage compliance and enforcement programs. She holds a Ph.D in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and is also the former head of that school's Performance Management Project.