Part III

REBOOT.

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.

—Charles Kettering

Let’s Get Real

YOU’VE COME A LONG WAY. In Rethink, you shored up your background on the flaws of old-school performance programs, you wrapped your brain (and, I hope, your heart) around the Fundamental Shifts, and you grounded yourself in the common goals of performance management. In Redesign, your team did the hard work of designing a solution that is unique to your strategy, your culture, and your promise to your employees—with the support of your leaders and other key influencers within your organization. And now that your solution is configured, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and make this design a living, breathing reality.

It’s natural at this point to ask yourself how you’re going to get your amazing custom performance management solution into the hands of your people in a way that ensures that they are ready to use it effectively. You’ll be happy to know that answering that question—as best I can—is my goal for this final section. However, don’t forget that your path from here on out may stray far from everyone else’s, because your design is one of a kind. That means I can’t give you as much targeted help as I did in the earlier phases, simply because I don’t know what your design looks like. If I describe in detail how to build a sturdy-framed commuter bike and you’ve designed a unicycle, what good is that? What I can do, however, is provide a bit of guidance on how to proceed, where to focus, and how to manage many of the variables that will influence the steps typically involved in bringing any PM design into reality.

Then, in chapter 10 I’ll provide some targeted help on the topic of managing change, because change—even a positive change such as an amazing new performance management solution—is hard for people. When managed poorly, it can derail even the best-laid plans and the most original and masterful designs. I’ll share some ideas on helping your people come to grips with the changes in order to really connect with your new solution. And by connecting, I’m talking about acceptance, understanding, adoption, and making good use of your spanking-new approach to performance management.