Modern Performance Management

There's a bewildering array of management tools out there. And they all promise to help you excel at the toughest parts of your job: defining your organization's strategic direction, managing customers and costs, and boosting workforce performance. But just 30 percent of these tools deliver as intended. Why? As Jeremy Hope and Steve Player reveal in Beyond Performance Management, while many tools are sound in theory, they're misused by most organizations. For example, executives buy and implement a tool without first asking, "What problem are we trying to solve?"

You don't have to do a dangerous job to endure a health-destroying, possibly life-threatening workplace. Just ask the manager in a senior finance role whose immense workload required frequent all-nighters, leading to alcohol and drug addiction. Or the dedicated news media producer whose commitment to getting the story resulted in a 60-pound weight gain thanks to having no down time to eat properly or exercise. These individuals are not exceptions. Every industry is filled with them, and the costs, to both employees and their companies, is enormous.

Modern employees are tired of command and control management. Employees are looking for personal growth, purpose, and a different lifestyle than prior generations of employees. These employees are in a market where they can have flexibility in how and where they work. They want and can demand choices in the work environment.

Flex is a creative, rebellious, badass way to live. It’s about looking at routines (like the nine to five) and social norms (like women bearing the brunt of the ‘emotional load’ at home) and bending and reshaping them. Flex is looking within and understanding yourself, your body and the patterns of your relationships and working out how to live, earn money and be happy in a way that is perfect for you and your unique talents. Flex is knowing that the world is changing fast. The jobs we were trained for in school won’t exist in a decade.