Hello, my name is Russ Wood. I’m a Senior Engineering Manager, Reader, Runner, and Illustrator.
Many of us find ourselves managing people in traditional organisations with established leadership hierarchies and performance management systems.
I care about the profound impact that these hierarchies and systems can have on the human experience, and our capacity to do good within these constraints.
I believe that a coaching approach to leadership that prioritises individual and team performance management, can be the foundation for improving this experience for both you and the people in your charge.
I’ve found that performance management systems are too often seen as a formality. They are misused, ignored, or an afterthought for many managers.
However, I’ve found it to be a highly effective area to focus improvement efforts on if you’re a manager who is aspiring to make a difference and get noticed.
Not only because these systems can have a huge positive or negative impact on people, but because it’s one of the few universally shared problems across your company.
Whether they like it or not, the performance management system in your organisation is already familiar to everyone around you. Everyone knows the language of it and it’s recognised company-wide.
This means that other managers, including the most senior managers, already understand how difficult it is to utilise for the purposes of motivation, alignment, recognition, and fairness, and will sit up and take notice if you succeed in doing this.
Indeed, it is a difficult skill to master, and we are rarely coached in how to do it effectively.
In response to these observations, I wanted to develop an empirical style that was effective and inspires people. One that I could commit to in my own daily leadership practice. A style that I could articulate and coach, and has a clear, recognisable identity.
I called it “Generative Performance Management” after Ron Westrum’s work that defines a generative organisational culture.
By packaging it in a comic book style, inspired by The Oatmeal, it is designed to be accessible for both new and experienced leaders alike, who find themselves overwhelmed and under-supported.
It emphasises a human-centric approach to technical management because, as Gerald Weinberg put it:
“No matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem”