Is your company’s performance management system actually delivering performance - or just ensuring compliance?

 

If your system isn’t producing performance - but monitors and measures compliance really well, then why is it even called a Performance Management System?

 

After more than three decades of coaching managers, I’ve come to an uncomfortable conclusion:

 

Most organisations are running a compliance system mislabelled as performance management.

 

• It looks efficient.

• It produces documents.

• It keeps the company safe.

 

But it doesn’t build capability, drive accountability, or improve results.

 

That’s because compliance and performance are two completely different outcomes - and they require different tools.

 

Trying to drive performance with a compliance framework is like trying to build a house with a tape measure instead of bricks.

 

You can document a lot - but you won’t deliver results.

 

Here’s what I see almost everywhere:

 

• Managers going through the motions just to avoid trouble - not to grow people or outcomes.

• HR teams buried in processes that no one respects.

• Leadership disconnected from what’s really happening on the ground.

 

So let me ask again:

 

Is your current system producing performance - or just paper?