Performance: Creating the Performance-Driven Organization

Not worth it...

...even if the book was free! Nobody needs another book filled with useless 1980's 'Greed is Good' HR nonsense. I weep for the trees that died so this garbage could get printed.

Do not waste your time

I was anxious to read this book because I am familiar with the company that the author owns. The author has a very twisted view on how to deal with people and assumes everyone is like him and only driven by money. His basic philosophy is 'Greed Is Good' and assumes everyone is like him. Thankfully, not every one is like him and only those who are would enjoy reading this book / collection of regurgitated cliches and quotes from Synygy's web site, brochures, white papers and conferences.

Don't waste your time

The only information in this book is the 'obvious' and the 'wrong'. For instance the author's insistence on his framework for performance (align, measure, reward, report, analyze): ALIGN: Kinda, obvious isn't it. There's no point in having duplicate departments or wasted efforts. Most businesses have gotten this problem solved at the Business Plan level. MEASURE: Dead wrong. There's no quicker way to kill morale than micromanaging employees down to the level of how long it takes them to answer the phone. Besides why are you wasting money employing people to 'measure' your other employees? REWARD: 'Pay for Performance'- Perhaps the worst idea in American Business since 'New COKE'. Good employees won't be motivated by extra money (sure they'll like it, but they'd do a good job without it). So the only thing this does is create a whole new crop of mercenary employees. REPORT: Because how else can you justify all that money you wasted on MEASURING. Besides nothing builds a team like telling them how they are different from their co-workers, right? WRONG! ANALYZE: Because those mercenary employees are really only interested in the money, so you have to tell them what the report means!! I had high hopes for this book when I bought it. Now, I really wish I could get my money back (and get back the time I spent reading it).

...hasn't this been tried before??

So I ended up with this book because of work, and while I'm reading it I keep thinking 'Where have I heard about this before??'. Then it hits me: ENRON!! They used this same system of incentives, reviews, and bonuses as what is detailed in this book. The end result for Enron was it destroyed the company. So, I definately disagree with a lot of what's in this book, but the bigger problem is what ISN'T in the book - namely the costs. Any plan has costs and benefits and in the end you have the weigh those costs and benefits to decide if you want to use the plan. But, Stiffler treats his 'Action Plans' as if there are no real costs. It's typical salespitch clap-trap. What about employee turnover (a major expense for almost any business), or damage to employee morale and teamwork (difficult to quantify but very important to most businesses)? I'd have to say that the cost of this kind of 'Performance' is way too high for the very small benefits it might offer.

Bad Ideas

I work in the HR department of a company that tried this type of system, and I can tell you from personal experience that it is a lousy idea. We eventually scrapped the entire thing and went back to a traditional pay/evaluation system. The 360 reviews were a disaster, we had to review each of the evaluations to screen out who was being honest and who wasn't (and you never really know for sure, I'm certain that we threw out perfectly accurate reviews in favor of dishonest ones that said what management wanted to believe). Many of our best employees quit because they felt like they couldn't keep up with younger employees who were willing to work long hours in order to get the bonuses. Then when the economy slowed down and we didn't pay bonuses, those people quit, and we were left with inexperienced workers who were totally overloaded. Finally when we scrapped the 'Performance Management Culture' we had to pay big signing bonuses to get some of our old employees (who really knew what they were doing) to come back. My boss got this book because he thought that it would have some new or different ideas in it, but it's just the same old stuff. We aren't gonna make that mistake again!! If you care about your company, don't use this book as anything other than a doorstop. (Or if you need to prop up some wobbly furniture) Whatever you do don't read it or use any ideas from it!

Toxic Cookbook

A friend of mine gave me this book because I often joke about Toxic Companies like Synygy (the company run by the author of this book), and how they get to be so toxic. I started reading this book expecting it to be bad, but it was far worse than I thought it would be. I couldn't even finish reading it. Half the book is just quotes from other companies, and the rest is a virtual 'How-To' on creating a toxic work environment for your employees. Stiffler just assumes that by dangling money in front of employees you'll get them to work harder, even though most of the evidence to date says otherwise (See: 'Why incentive plans cannot work,' Harvard Business Review and 'Six dangerous myths about pay,' Harvard Business Review). In short if you're looking for meaningless quotes, bad advice, and a sales pitch for Synygy, this is the book for you. Otherwise, I'd suggest avoiding this book.

A dud

The book is mostly a confusing jumble of acronyms and quotes from other companies. It makes for a frustrating read. I was looking for some useful information, but everything in this book was either contradicting something else in the book or it was outdated advice. It seems like the author still buys into the concept that employees/vendors/contractors can be tricked into working harder if you put them on variable pay plans. The problem is that most of the modern advice is that that technique will only work in the short term. Employees get wise to the system and then you have to change it. When you change the incentive system, employee morale plummets, and organizational performace drops right along with employee morale! This really is more like a cookbook for turning an otherwise okay business into a low-performing sweatshop environment with high-turnover! If you care about your organization, avoid this book like the plague!

Easy to Understand and Powerful to Apply to Your Business

I had the pleasure of reading this book and found it to provide constructive guide to Performance Management. Along with providing some history and perspective on how Performance Management is expanding across the entire organization. I would recommend this book to those who are looking to adopt Performance Management across the business and need to utilize a simple and easy to use framework that can be used in your organization.

No text was provided for this review.