Several days ago, I took exception to the absolute nature of a quote
implying that if people clearly understand the organization's measurement
system, they will align their behavior accordingly. There are often
circumstances when common sense or our personal values tell us to ignore
the organization's measurement and/or incentive system and "do the right
thing". When I wrote the message I was thinking of a simple story from my
past that is repeated thousands of times every day all over the world.
When I worked as the Compensation Director for B. Dalton Bookseller many
years ago, my boss, the V.P. of Human Resources, measured our on-time
behavior for staff meetings. One day Mary Lilja, our Corporate
Communications Director, arrived 30 minutes late. On her way to the
meeting she had witnessed a traffic accident. This woman understood
communications and it had been communicated to her that she was to arrive
at meetings on time. Her first impulse was to drive on by and let someone
else help the injured persons, but her personal value system over-ruled
the corporate measurement system. She explained that this experience had
been very unsettling to her because she had considered letting the
corporation dictate her behavior.
I agree that most organizations need to do a better job of defining,
measuring and communicating key performance indicators. But let's never
neglect to tell our employees that we want them to use their brains and
their hearts as they make decisions throughout the day.
Best regards,
Roxanne
--Roxanne Abbas Abbas Compensation Strategies rabbas@comp-web.com http://www.comp-web.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>