What gets measured sometimes gets managed.

• Author: Aaron, William

One of the commonly invoked adages among those who work with performance information and performance management is the classic "what gets measured gets managed." This aphorism, coined by management guru Peter Drucker, reflects the commonly held belief that the act of measuring performance is sufficient to provoke a managerial response--a response that will, it is strongly implied, improve performance.

This pattern of stimulus and response is often taken as a given--if you have a problem, you can effectively use one or more performance measurements to help fix it. Our daily routine and experience tend to reinforce this idea; most of us adjust our pressure on the gas pedal as we notice the speedometer creeping up, for example, and do so without thinking much about it. But as with so many adages, there is more to it. It is probably more accurate to say "what gets measured probably gets noticed--and therefore may get some response," although this version is not as much fun to say and is far less reassuring.

Indeed, the assumption of causality breaks down pretty quickly for organizations, especially large, complex ones like governments. Decision makers, whatever their level in the organizational chart, fail to use performance information to improve their performance for a whole raft of reasons. They may not understand what the data does or does not mean. They may lack incentives to respond. The proper response may not be clear. There may be incentives or political pressures not to respond. And in the absence of an aligned management framework, even well-intended efforts are likely to be divided and not lead to desired results, or possibly even work against one another.

MOVE TO THE NEXT LEVEL

It is this gap--the realization that introducing performance information does not automatically drive more effective management--that defines the real difference between performance reporting and performance management. Performance reporting in government presents performance data for a wide variety of purposes: compliance with statutory requirements, demonstration of transparency to stakeholders, showing accountability to citizens, etc. There is certainly nothing wrong with these purposes, and more governments would do well to subscribe to them. Indeed, an encouraging trend is the increased emphasis on state and local governments providing the public with performance reports that are timely and useful. A number of governments, especially local governments, are more aggressively seeking citizen input on what performance information they want to see and how they want to see it.

But performance management takes the benefits that performance reporting brings and carries them further, reaping significant additional value. Performance management does not take a sound managerial response to performance data for granted. Instead, it deliberately and systematically supports the use of performance data as an essential part of management processes at all levels to drive more informed, and better, decisions. Moving beyond a reporting culture to one that is focused on delivering results for customers is not always easy, but it is a critical success factor--perhaps the critical success factor--in delivering better performance from gov ernment.The rewards...