The Value Revolution: Why your high-performance model isn’t fit for purpose in 2025
In today’s challenging climate we’ve become fixated with measuring everything. If I had a penny for every time someone has quoted Peter Drucker at me I’d be in the Bahamas right now “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” Lord Kelvin said “When you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind,"
But is that really true?
What if we’ve become so fixated on the numbers that we’ve lost sight of what really matters; people? And what if our fixation on performance metrics isn’t actually giving us the insights and the information we need to help our teams improve?
“We had the highest numbers of all the UK teams. We served the most customers; we’d secured the most investment. By the end of the next year the entire team had left the organisation”
A friend and I were talking about the worst best jobs we’d ever had. The job she was referring to was during her time working for a national retailer. It was the best job in terms of how much she felt she’d achieved while she was there and the worst because of the toxic culture and inflexible working arrangements.
On paper, hers was the highest performing team in the country. But every single person in that office was deeply unhappy and had left to find work elsewhere taking their experience, knowledge and talent with them.
Was that loss measured by the organisation? Years of building and shaping high performing teams has shown me that the “high performance” model has some serious limitations.
What are we measuring and why?
Imagine that a high-profile organisation has been in news recently going through a very public redundancy and restructure process- let’s think about how we would capture the performance of the remaining staff in the aftermath of this.
These people are now facing a number of challenges; they’ve lost colleagues they've worked alongside for many years. They may have thoughts/feelings about the way the process was handled. They may be worried that their own jobs are now at risk, and they may even feel guilty that they got to keep their jobs whilst their colleagues lost theirs.
These people have to pick up the pieces and carry on. They’re navigating a new (potentially heavier) workload, a new team framework and possibly a new line manager. They have to form new teams and work together to find new ways to deliver a high standard of services in a very different environment. Less staff, reduced resources and quite possibly higher expectations or at least increased pressure to produce outputs.
A high-performance model would struggle to capture the resilience, retain talent, flexibility, adaptability and the innovation that these teams will inevitably have to muster going forwards. It feels entirely inappropriate to measure these new teams against the old yard stick. Fast forward another 18 months and there is no spreadsheet that could capture and record what these teams will have to pull out of the bag to keep the organisation moving forwards whilst making sure the service users get a high-quality service.
What do we even mean by high performance?
Outputs aren't everything, as demonstrated by my friend and her team who voted with their feet and left the business taking their experience and their talent with them.
The fixation on outputs excludes other, arguably more vital elements of teamwork/ environment such as resilience, psychological safety, trust, innovation, creativity, wellbeing. What most organisations mean by high performance is based on measurable results and outcomes such as; Consistently exceeding targets and goals. Delivering superior quality products or services. And achieving sustainable financial performance. It typically refers to achieving exceptional results and operating at peak effectiveness.
Organisations normally measure “high performance” through various metrics including financial results, customer satisfaction, operational indicators, innovation metrics, and employee engagement scores. If you’re reading this you don’t need me to spell it out, you already know. You’re probably already doing it or have been subjected to this type of measurement of your productivity, output and performance but the “high performance” model has its limitations.
When high performance falls short
There are a number of hidden costs behind the pursuit of a metric based high performance model which include potential for burnout and decreased job satisfaction due to the intense focus on performance and pressure to achieve targets. A strong focus on performance can sometimes lead to anxiety and a feeling of pressure to overwork. A high-performance model also has a narrowing effect on creativity, stifling creative freedom in favour of rigid metrics and performance outputs.
We also have to consider the age of the workforce in question. The people joining our teams in 2025 have an entirely different set of workplace expectations compared to generations that have gone before them. But most worryingly of all, the high-performance measurement model can also mask underlying organisational problems, as we saw in my colleagues examples of having a high performing team, a team full of talented and successful individuals who all leave the organisation because of a negative working environment.
So, what's the answer? What should we be measuring that drives organisational performance, drives growth, encourages innovation and creativity and engages and motivates our teams?
Value is the missing piece
“Value" differs fundamentally from performance. When we focus on value, we’re measuring what genuinely matters rather than what’s quantifiable.
How many "silent meetings" do you have? The ones where only leaders speak and others remain quiet? Do you have a blame culture where people are reluctant to admit failures or mistakes and prefer to keep quiet due to fear? Are you teams working in silos and you’ve noticed that they’re not collaborating effectively? This could be down to a lack of psychological safety and you might not be solving the root of the issue because you haven’t prioritised building trust in your teams. Values haven't factored into your team development programme because it feels woolly and it's hard to put numbers on. If team members are afraid of speaking up, voicing their ideas or raising concerns you will notice. You will see the impact on the business and you will be able to measure that negative impact.
Fresh approaches to measuring impact
In a post pandemic society of tariffs, supply chain issues, recession and multiple global conflicts and economic instability the organisations that ride out the storm will be the ones that can hang on to their top talent whilst navigating increasingly complex challenges. Those organisations need to challenge the conventional wisdom about what makes a team successful.
How do your clients feel about your services, your responsiveness?
Do they think you’re an ethical brand?
Do they recommend you to others?
Do they trust you?
How well do they feel you resolve any issues or mistakes?
How resilient are your team in the face of setbacks?
Does communication collapse, is there a blame shift culture or do they work together to problem solve?
How much do they trust each other?
Are your senior leaders making ethical decisions when they’re under pressure?
Do your leaders have the facilities and the confidence to make the right call in challenging circumstances?
Consider how you’d answer these questions and how well they reflect the current state of your organisation. Would the wider team agree with assessment of where your organisations is at and how do you feel about asking them? These questions may feel difficult but doing the work and navigating the discomfort will yield the most spectacular results.
Making the shift (in real terms)
If you’ve got this far something is clearly resonating with you. Here’s my straightforward advice for leaders wanting to change course:
Evaluate your current metrics; how do you currently measure performance? Do your current metrics reflect both the goals and the values of your organisation? Do these metrics also represent how your team members measure their contribution?
Spot and address performance-obsessed team dynamics; are your managers more concerned with targets than they are the wellbeing of your teams? Do you have staff turnover or absence rates? How long does your top talent tend to stay with your organisation? Do you do exit surveys where people are able to share their experience of the organisation candidly?
Think about how you spot and reward different forms of value; decide what matters do your organisation in terms of values and how your organisation is experienced both by your service users and the team. How do you identify and reward behaviour that exemplifies or promotes the core values of your business in a way that encourages, motivates and inspires others?
In leadership we’ve always done what we’ve always done because it’s familiar and easy and the shift away from measuring “high performance” in terms of numbers, tick boxes and outputs isn't easy, but it is worth pursuing.
I typically work with leadership and their teams to help bring them together, find out what’s not working and help them design and co-create new and better ways of working. This work creates confident, capable leaders and effective, functional teams who work well together in good times, tough times and the times in between.
If you are curious about finding a better way to measure the effectiveness and performance of your people and you’re interested in being part of the value revolution, get in touch at amanda@amandaowenmeehan.com