MeasuringAndManagingPerformanceInOrganizations

Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations 1996 Dorset House [ISBN 0932633366 (amazon.com, search)] by RobertDAustin?

The title sounds like yet another study in balanced scorecards, or six-sigma, or some other pseudo-analytical way to substitute a mechanism for judgment. It isn't that. I'd like to suggest a better title, but unfortunately the one it has is accurate. The book really is about "measuring and managing performance in organizations." But not the way you think. It's about why and how the naive application of this measure or that goes haywire.

Austin's book is really an extended study in the law of unintended consequences at work in organizations. Liberally illustrated by this story or that, he keeps coming back to the same lesson (which he never states straight out): When the system you are steering isn't the system you think it is, the results you get when you intervene may not be what you expect. Or in the modern web-based shorthand: YMMV.

Along the way Austin points out several big insights, again without calling them out in one liners:

• Businesses are composed of autonomous, self-interested agents who are aware they are being measured. So, naive assumptions about how they will respond to measures and rewards are likely wrong.
• When you set up rewards, you will get what you measure and reward. Exactly what you measure and reward, at the point where you measure and reward it. So be sure you want that.
• It's a system. So even if you get what you set out to get, ....?

A lot of the thinking here is really an application of general systems to business, similar to PeterSenge's take on systems thinking from TheFifthDiscipline, or JerryWeinberg's in QSM. Applications of systems thinking, and examples of systems effects show up in Goldratt, and DeMarco? as well. Both Senge and Weinberg provide better general systems tools. Austin's contribution is integrating this kind of thinking with discussions of the management of a business, and the creation of reward structures. Also with a good deal of psychology, with a perspective similar to AlfieKohn in PunishedByRewards.

To date, every person I have given this book to has reacted to reading it with: "Oh, my god . . . " Yep. Shooting ourselves in the foot with most of what we try to do in managing performance. Both feet actually. (I do pick people who are ready for the message.)

The foreword alone - by TomDeMarco and TimothyLister - is worth the price of the book. -- JamesBullock

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The book really is about "measuring and managing performance in organizations." But not the way you think.

The best books I've ever read on technical subjects were those that were "really about" their title topic, but not the way I thought. "Secrets of consulting" comes to mind. -- lb

I think there's a reason for that. The best books are providing you an insight that will change how you think about the topic. So about the topic, but not the way you think. (Shameless plug = "on") Even our little tome the RoundtableOnProjectManagement has been called: "Really a handbook on management, and a good one." (Shameless plug = "off") So let's see. Managing a project is managing something. So you've got mostly the same problems, with a slight difference in how success is measured. That difference is the theme of Gilbreth's WinningAtProjectManagement? - great book, bad title. And another book with a "bait and switch."

How many people, in how much of their lives, really are asking for "Don't surprise me." when they go off to talk with someone else, or read something, or even get a status report or have a staff meeting. How much do they miss? -- jb

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Could someone please explain what "bait and switch" means? -- kb

It's an American idiom for a shady sales tactic:

• Some product is advertised for sale at a very low price
• When you ask for it, they either tell you:
  • it's sold out or
  • you really need this better (more expensive!) product instead.

They lure you with the bait and switch you something entirely more expensive. -- bl

So these books:

The best books I've ever read on technical subjects were those that were "really about" their title topic, but not the way I thought.

are really a kind of "bait and switch up." The opposite result of a typical con-job "bait and switch", with these books, you end up getting more than you bargained for, at the price you expected. - jb

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A BookOnTheBookshelf largely about SeeingSystems you didn't know were there.