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The Mandate to Measure Performance
High-performance IT organizations clearly articulate what they expect from and how they measure employees. Here are some examples:
- "We have a talent review process that rates people against a set of 12 core characteristics," says a respondent at a health care distributor.
- "We follow a disciplined process that includes the next level of potential based on company-defined job classifications," says an automotive after-market executive.
- "We have a performance management process in place that starts at the CEO level and is trickled down to every employee," says a respondent at a global manufacturer.
- "We have a tracking program that we refer to as our 'nine-box grid,' which we use to identify people ready for more responsibility," says a respondent in health care services.
- "I took my direct reports and set up some common, agreed-upon definitions of what we mean by a 'high performer,'" says a respondent at a regional manufacturer.
Defining IT high performance should not be treated as a trivial exercise, but only 21% of midmarket companies do it at all, compared with 59% of large firms (see Figure 4). The dismissive attitude of one midmarket insurance CIO -- "It's like defining obscenity; you know [high performance] when you see it" -- is the rule, not the exception.
But at the risk of sounding like a Zen priest, I must ask, "Can you win a game where there is no scorekeeping?" The essential characteristic of an excellent IT organization is that it defines excellence and then applies these metrics to every employee.
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