Topic 6.5: Feedback and Reward for Success

The purpose of feedback and rewards is to guide, motivate, instruct, and enhance, as well as to build an overall culture of focus on value delivery and impact. The extent to which governments are successful in improving performance management will depend on many factors, not just those they have relied on to drive reform in the past. Cultural factors can have a powerful impact on the quality of implementation, the use of performance information, and ultimately outcomes.

The purpose of this section is to guide you in expanding your thinking around these critical factors.

Firstly, note carefully the discussions concerning managerial discretion, a learning and evaluative organisational culture and stakeholder involvement (Goh, 2012)^[1]. Figure 1 in the Swee reading (2012:38)^[2] highlights the relationships between these factors and performance outcomes.

Secondly, contemplate the relevance of the suggestion of the importance of stakeholder involvement in the development of performance measures.

Thirdly, note the observation that a strong evaluative culture that encourages people to seek information about performance, will improve performance and contribute to informed decision making.

A culture for feedback, reward and success

All organisations have both formal and informal mechanisms that are expected to guide and shape behaviours, and keep people on track, through reward for performance, remedial guidance for unacceptable performance, or a combination of both.

By becoming explicit about the ways organisations think about the future, they will be able to create new practices and invent ways to become more effective (Baker, 2013)^[3]. Essential is also removing past practices that restrict performance. Pfeffer and Sutton (2000)^[4] propose that team leaders and members should continually seek greater responsibilities and at the same time, seek to understand the factors that drive transparency, predictive capabilities, thoughtful risk practices, and importantly, compassion!

These factors need to be linked to organisational measures. Here is an interesting observation: “There is evidence that measures have powerful effects on behaviour even when they are not coupled with rewards” (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2000, p. 140). So, from high level strategy through the implementation system, the measurement and performance system should be focused on desirable outcomes.

And how should you, in your role, shape your thinking, and work to understand what the organisation seeks and in turn help to deliver on those outcomes?

Here are some action steps:

• Use measures that enhance the development and use of knowledge; the key point being knowledge into action
• Link the measures to the cultural values of the organisation, and in particular focus on specific behaviours that can be coached and learned
• Make the process explicit and understood
• Focus on measures that produce change, including sharing information in a team setting, and in an open manner, that highlight team work and limit internal competition
• Emphasise success in team and organisational terms, thus highlighting a cooperative internal culture, rather than highlighting individual successes
• Focus on long-term rather than short-term performance measures
• Highlight the links between team actions and behaviours and the overall value and outcomes of initiatives and work more generally.
• Overall the message is that rewards and recognition can create benefits, or can hinder success, depending on how they are designed, and how they are administered.

As well as this feedback and reward discussion, and practical ‘tips’ from the previous topic, keep in mind the concepts of impact, purpose and public sector value and how these fit in the with the concepts we introduced in Module 1, in particular the Strategic Triangle (Figure 1.1), the Dimensions of Public Value (Table 1.1), and The Public Sector Value Scorecard (Meynhardt, Gomez, & Schweizer, 2014)^[5] (Figure 1.2).