More than thirty years in public service have taught me things no textbook ever could. You sit through reorganizations and restructuring, survive changes in administration, and watch the same problems resurface—repackaged under new names with fresh acronyms.
Nowhere is this more evident than in performance management: a discipline the public sector has invested in repeatedly, yet has struggled to translate into consistent practice.
But viewed through the lens of a learning organization, this is not just a performance management problem. It is a learning failure.
In this third part of the series, I share four vignettes—each one revealing why organizations struggle not just to perform, but to learn from their own performance.
Vignette One: The Bloody Business of Appraisal
Performance appraisal has always been — and I use this word deliberately — bloody. Madugo! The moment you introduce comparison, you introduce conflict. Stack ranking, forced distribution, relative scoring: whatever you call it, the message is the same. Someone has to lose so that someone else can win.
In a learning organization, comparison should generate insight. Instead, it generates silence.
Then there is the Productivity Incentive Bonus, now Performance-Based Bonus — a well-intentioned mechanism that in practice becomes a source of quiet resentment. Equal rewards despite unequal contributions send a powerful signal: effort is not meaningfully recognized. Over time, this erodes not just motivation—but feedback. People stop raising the bar because the system does not distinguish who actually met it. Without differentiation, there is nothing to learn from.
Vignette Two: The Performance Conversation as Theater
Performance conversations, as they are typically practiced, are a futile exercise.
I have sat in enough of them — and facilitated enough of them — to know what usually happens. A supervisor and an employee convene at the prescribed time, go through the prescribed form, exchange the prescribed pleasantries, and part ways having changed nothing. The supervisor wanted the conversation to end. The employee wanted a good rating. Both got what they came for, and neither got what they needed.
Real performance conversations are uncomfortable. They require a supervisor who knows what good work actually looks like, who can point to specific behaviors and outcomes, and who is willing to say hard things with both clarity and care. They require an employee who is open to hearing where they fall short — not just validated for showing up.
Instead, what most public sector organizations get is compliance masquerading as development. The form is filed. The box is checked. Nothing changes—because nothing real was discussed.
Learning requires discomfort. And most systems are designed to avoid it.
Vignette Three: The Conviction That Has Not Changed Since 2005
In 2005, I said something in a lecture that I would still say today:
No amount of new system can improve performance if targets are not clearly set and results are not measured.
This is not just a performance principle. It is a learning principle. A learning organization depends on feedback loops. But feedback cannot exist without clarity of expectations and evidence of results. When targets are vague, there is nothing to compare against. When measurement is weak, there is nothing to reflect on. When reflection is absent, learning does not happen.
We introduce systems, platforms, and reforms—but fail to build the most basic learning mechanism: knowing what success looks like and whether we achieved it. Without that, everything else is decoration.
Vignette Four: The Priority Problem
Perhaps the most candid observation is this: performance management is often treated as an administrative requirement rather than a leadership discipline. A learning organization cannot exist where learning itself is not a priority.
I was reminded of this during a session with a local government unit. The question came plainly: "Why do SPMS? It is too tedious. We have more important things to do." It was an honest question—and it revealed the real issue. It is not the system, not the forms nor the guidelines. It was about priority. Because when performance is not a priority, neither is learning.
What follows is predictable:
- Inefficiencies persist because no one studies outcomes
- Omissions recur because no one reviews them
- Mediocrity stabilizes because no one challenges it
What This Means for a Learning Organization
If a learning organization is one that improves because it reflects, then performance management is its most critical mechanism. But only if it is done right.
After 33 years, I no longer look for the perfect system. I look for three conditions that enable learning:
- Leadership that treats performance as a practice - - not a report. Not a requirement. But something discussed, questioned, and acted upon.
- Targets that enable feedback. Clear, specific, and measurable—so that results can actually be evaluated and learned from.
- Conversations that produce insight. Honest, evidence-based, and regular—not annual rituals, but continuous sense-making.
None of these are technical. They are behavioral. That is precisely why they are difficult.
The Real Lesson
Seen this way, the persistence of weak performance management systems is not surprising. We have been trying to fix a learning problem with technical solutions. But learning does not come from templates. It comes from discipline. From the willingness to ask:
What did we intend?
What actually happened?
What will we do differently?
Until organizations build that discipline—consistently and visibly—they will continue to repeat the same problems under new names.
After thirty years, this is the clearest lesson I can offer:
An organization that cannot learn from its performance cannot improve its performance.
And no system—no matter how well designed—can substitute for that.
- Director Noreen
Image Credit: Generated using AI (DALL·E) based on the author’s original concept.
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