Tall Performance from Short Organizations Through We/Me Power

Tall performance, or the right results not gotten in the wrong ways, is a tough standard to reach and sustain even for empowered teams in shorter organizations, or what I refer to as "lowerarchies." What teams need is a model approach for managing their own performance like the one I introduce for the first time in this book. I call the new approach the "We/Me" model of "MBR." It’s "We/Me," because it preserves the power of both individual and team performance without sacrificing one for the other. There could be no teamwork with a "Me" model alone, and a "We" model alone would foster social loafing and drive "MVPs" (most valuable performers) away. It’s "MBR," because managing both behaviors and results, not just one or the other, makes a big and practical difference for business success in general and business ethics in particular. MBR is not to be confused with MBO, or management-by-objectives, the classical top-down and results-only approach to managing.

Over the years I have created several versions of MBR, ironically, all for use in tall government bureaucracies, some of the tallest organizations in the world as a matter of fact. One version was considered so innovative that it was showcased to US agencies and their regional offices. Even so, the bureaucracy wasn’t built short or for empowered teams, needless to say, and that, plus a slew of silly civil service laws and their implementing regulations kept me from introducing even further innovations. But I’m free from all of that now and so I’ve totally reengineered MBR and created the new model.

MBR begins with the setting of tall performance expectations and proceeds to the follow-up of those expectations. The follow-up involves tending performance, appraising performance, and sanctioning performance. While these are traditional functions in most any business, they are carried out very differently through the We/Me model because the traditional way gets in the way of tall performance.

One of the unique features of the model is how it allows for full accountability of performance by individuals and their teams through expectations about and the follow-up on both their behaviors and their results. Conventional accountability concentrates on results and ignores behaviors, or the manner in which the results are achieved. By adding accountability for behaviors, important and practical distinctions can be made between positive and negative success and between positive and negative failure. The distinctions may reflect old truths, but these old truths need to have a way of being put into practice.

Another unique feature of the model is the approach to performance appraisal, a subject that has had a dismal history for thousands of years, dating back at least to the fourth century AD in China when an "Imperial Rater" was accused of giving the highest performance ratings to favorites of the Royal Court rather than to the meritorious. Déjà vu! It’s no wonder that some critics advocate eliminating the practice altogether. But that’s not a viable solution. Tall performance requires performance appraisal because it’s necessary for accountability. So, after many years of study and thought I have come up with what I think is a unique, workable, and acceptable solution for individuals and their teams.

The model also departs from the conventional wisdom that in order to preserve teamwork only teams and not also their individual members should be rewarded for deserving performance. That is an untenable proposition, and the model instead provides for both "We" and "Me" rewards for deserving performance.

Yet another unique but also logical and necessary feature is that the model mainstreams ethical considerations into the entire performance management process. It’s logical to do so, since ethical behavior is part of tall performance. It’s also necessary for doing business ethically and consistently so. The standard corporate ethics program, with its ethics officer, code of ethics, workshops, hotline, and the like, is simply insufficient by itself to foster organization-wide sensitivity to and the practice of ethical business. Obviously, any business desperate and determined enough to stay competitive by breaking laws will do so undeterred by any ethics program, the We/Me model, or existing laws and regulations. But for the rest of the business community, "business ethics" needn’t be an "oxymoron." I think the approach introduced in this book can help any business trying to steer an ethical course while not at the same time being outperformed or outlived by the competition.

Because the model is for use by empowered teams, an issue arises that I want to address right now. It’s the argument by some that the organization loses necessary control over what’s happening if the organization’s leader empowers everyone in the organization. But that argument is the old command-and-control mentality associated with layered organizations and also with the concept of management as a position rather than as a process. The model allows for people to control themselves through empowerment that is done responsibly, not irresponsibly.

The book is organized into two parts. The first part gives four guiding principles. Without principles, the new approach could be just another one of those management fads that, for lack of a solid rationale behind it, comes and goes, as so often happens. The second part shows, through the WE/ME model, how the principles can be applied. The model is very flexible. It can be applied to any form of a short organization, large or small, with fewer rather than more management layers. The model also allows empowered people, as they should be allowed, to adapt the model as they see fit as long as they follow the principles and don’t repeat the history of performance appraisal.

At the end of the book are some appendices, which I think you’ll find very useful if you should decide that the We/Me model or some variation of it is worthy of further consideration for possible use.

I know there are scores of books in which each addresses one or more of the three topics of teams, performance management, and business ethics. So why read and use this book if you are in business, a member of an empowered team, an internal or external consultant, a teacher of business, or anyone who believes in tall performance? I’ve found the other books to be useful in different ways, but none integrates all three topics into one unique model, the We/Me model, which I think you’ll find to be quite promising for its potential in helping empowered teams reach tall performance and stay there.

Gary B. Brumback,