“Performance culture” is used to describe two incompatible management systems. One system is evidence-based and includes psychological safety, trust, intrinsic motivation, mastery orientation, autonomy, and sustainable work. The other system is management by fear, characterized by higher loads, ruthless focus on results, gag orders, and removing “B-players.” Fear-based approaches do not support performance and instead degrade it. Examples include Enron and Wells Fargo, both of which claimed performance cultures but produced outcomes tied to cutthroat competition, impossible targets, threats of termination, and fraud. Evidence-based performance culture aligns with research-identified foundations of high performance.
"Performance culture sounds good. Who would argue with "performance culture"? Well...let's check how it is defined. In the minds of many executives, it means higher loads, "ruthless" focus on results, gag orders, and getting rid of "B-players." 1 This is framed as the rejection of the "soft" management, even if "softness" never went beyond the performative empathy-washing."
"Yet even Bain Consulting, which can hardly be accused of softness, defined performance culture as one where people are empowered, given the needed resources, and are safe to learn and make mistakes. 2 Which is the "real" performance culture? The ruthless and silencing one, or the empowering one? Both claim the label. Only one can back it up with research evidence."
"After all, Enron claimed to have a performance culture. Then it turned out that engineering cutthroat competition among employees produces "creative accounting" banking on phantom profits. 3 Wells Fargo claimed to have a performance culture. Then it turned out that combining impossible targets with the constant threat of termination produces fraudulent accounts opened without customers' knowledge. 4"
"Performance culture-evidence-based (EB) creates organizational conditions that the research consistently identifies as actual foundations of high performance. Psychological safety to learn from mistakes and point out potential threats. Intrinsic motivation. Mastery orientation supporting learning and exploration. Autonomy. Trust. Sustainable work. Performance culture-EB cultivates human cognitive and"
#organizational-psychology #management-by-fear #psychological-safety #intrinsic-motivation #performance-culture
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