Performance management culture

Creating a performance culture

The right organisational culture is critical to improving the effectiveness of performance management, but it is notoriously difficult to describe or plan to change.

Culture is about people. It can be thought of as the sum total of the beliefs, values and behaviours of individuals within a given group, and it is a means by which norms of acceptable behaviour are established. Because culture is about what people believe and do, it has a huge impact on:

• what a council sets out to do, its vision and priorties
• how people are managed, motivated and supported to do their jobs
• how individuals or groups respond to demands for improved performance
• how individuals and the council as a whole view and make use of peformance management systems

Within the work of the Performance Management Measurement and Information (PMMI) project, we have seen how improtant a council's culture is to the operation of performance management.  We have prepared a guidance briefing, with tools, examples and workshops activities called Performance management: a cultural revolution (PDF file, 13 pages, 167 KB).

Find out more

The performance culture checklist (PDF, 3 pages, 42 KB) can help authorities to identify where they are in terms of developing a performance-oriented culture, and areas where they will want to concentrate their change management efforts. 

Read more about changing culture and change stories in the PMMI publications directory. 

Download the conference proceedings report from a PMMI online conference on embedding performance management frameworks and developing a performance management culture.

See what other councils are doing to embed a performance culture by reading PMMI research case studies, in particular:

• how Derbyshire's positive culture and attitude permeates their whole organisation, motivating and empowering staff to experiment with and take ownership of the improvement agenda
• senior managers at Stockton-on-Tees use a mixture of  "clear-cut non negotiable requirements, support and enagagement" to bring different groups on board with their performance management improvement programme
• Bath and North East Somerset's experience of developing a outcome and efficiency-focused council  

Discuss developing and changing a performance culture with other practitioners and share your stories in the Performance Management Community of Practice (registration required).