Realizing the Promise of Performance Management

For many companies, performance management is a boring, time-consuming ritual that yields little tangible benefit, without a hint of impact on the bottom line. Realizing the Promise of Performance Management paints the picture of an invaluable system that can underpin and permeate all organizational efforts—driving straight through to an improved bottom line. This book describes a system that can enable an organization to seamlessly execute its business and cultural strategies in full alignment with its other important HR systems, such as selection, promotion, succession planning, and compensation.

Realizing the Promise of Performance Management presents more than a dozen case studies—depicting how some of the best-known global companies have leveraged their performance management systems to retain top talent, invigorate their workforces, reduce turnover, align capabilities, and grow their business. Drawing on lessons learned from more than 30 years’ experience with hundreds of companies, Robert W. Rogers presents a strong case for the whys of performance management—why spend time doing it right, why insist that senior executives model the process, why track how well the system works, and most of all, why demand that managers become skilled users of the system. Ultimately, as you’ll see by reading this book, because it will get results.

Robert W. Rogers, president of Development Dimensions International (DDI), has long been an articulate advocate of performance management as an effective tool to drive strategic organizational change.

An acknowledged expert in effecting organizational change, as DDI’s chief operating officer he used the organization’s performance management system as a primary tool to lead the company through a transformation in the 1990s that shifted DDI’s strategic focus from products and sales to customer and associate retention. He succeeded in aligning the new strategic focus with a culture that emphasizes customer focus, teamwork, innovation, and high involvement.

In 1997, he co-authored Organizational Change That Works: How to Merge Culture and Business Strategies for Maximum Results, a book that details the change blueprint he followed in transforming the DDI culture.

Before being promoted to chief operating officer in 1990, Mr. Rogers worked from 1983 to 1989 as senior vice president of DDI’s regional operations. Under his leadership since then, the organization has grown steadily—from a company that grossed $7 million annually to one that currently grosses more than $100 million.

Mr. Rogers’ expertise also extends into the assessment realm. Upon joining DDI in 1977 as director of DDI’s Washington, D.C., office, he became heavily involved in executive assessment and performance management projects for the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Health and Human Services (formerly the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare), the Department of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the National Credit Union, and many others.

One of Mr. Rogers’ most significant projects was for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Following the Office of Personnel Management’s uniform guidelines and procedures, he helped to design a comprehensive program for selecting regional directors for the EEOC’s major field offices. He directed the assessment of more than 100 candidates and trained top-level executives in evaluating candidates’ experiences and accomplishments based on specific, job-related criteria.

Mr. Rogers has delivered keynote addresses at major conferences around the world. He also continues to consult actively with senior executives in client organizations in the areas of performance management, organizational change, and leadership development. Some of these organizations include General Motors, BMW, Toyota, Pfizer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Warner-Lambert, Gillette, Nestlé, Cadbury-Schweppes, Kemper Insurance, ICI Chemicals, Citibank, Georgia-Pacific, Transocean, and the United States Army and Air Force.