In an article originally published in BPM Magazine, co-author Gary Cokins and I made the case for the Chief Performance Officer in “Why Corporate Performance Management Needs its Own Office.” In this article, we stated, “As uncertainty increases in the external environment, corporate managers are finding it more and more difficult to reach consensus on decisions. Performance information and performance management methodologies help enable decision-making processes, so some businesses are dedicating senior leaders to overseeing them.”

The only differences between writing then and now is that the market-driven and political pressures have increased and more organizations have adopted CPM offices. But what is the background for this office, and what are the characteristics of the CPM office? I was fortunate to function as the CPO while an SVP in the office of the CEO of Crown Castle International, and thereafter conducted research with leading companies on this topic that resulted in my book Five Key Principles of CPM (John Wiley & Sons).

Research: I was fortunate to be able to research what Malcolm Baldrige, Deming, APQC, and Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame award-winning commercial, public, and nonprofit enterprises know that eludes most executives. Based on reviews and discussions with more than 40 organizations that have won multiple awards for their performance management practices and results, the framework emerged consisting of “Five Key Principles” that distinguish today’s successful CPM initiatives from improvement programs of the past. I sincerely thank the executive teams who contributed their cases to the book, #1 on both www.Amazon.com and www.barnesnoble.com in the CPM category. I donate all royalties to the United Flight 93 site near my home in PA; to express your appreciation, please go to www.honorflight93.org.

This edition of my blog focuses on some of the Principle 1 best practices, with more to come each week.

Principle 1: Establish and deploy a CPM office and officer. I discovered that there are eight best practices that enable companies to successfully establish the position of CPM officer as a driver of organizational change; let’s look at the first of eight best practices:

Executive sponsorship. Successful offices of performance management and CPM executives are sponsored at the highest levels of the organization. By providing this support, senior executives signal the priority and importance they place on performance management improvement initiatives. In doing so, they remove many obstacles from the path of those initiatives.

This point is so critical that the rest of the best practices follow from it. Insistent sponsorship from the CEO, or the CEO equivalent in public or nonprofit sectors (e.g., commissioner, governor, general), is enormously beneficial. Sponsorship from one of the CEO’s direct reports — the CFO, COO, or an influential business unit or department leader (e.g., human resources, quality assurance) — is a good alternative. Whatever his title, the sponsor must support the CPM office and the CPM executive and put himself out in front prior to launch to provide appropriate “air cover” and alert the organization of the office’s importance.

Post-launch, the sponsor needs to stay dynamically involved in telling the CPM story as events and projects unfurl and wins are cataloged. It’s important that this support remain strong through any CPM missteps and as the organization goes through stages of the grief cycle (i.e., anger, denial, and acceptance) in fits and starts, as it does during every significant transformational project.

While in the CPO role, at times some operating-unit leaders indicated that they were uncomfortable with the CPM office — for instance, when we required them to administer surveys to their external customers. Because we had the backing of the CEO, however, they accommodated our requests.

Over time, these same leaders came to recognize the importance of our efforts and made their own significant contributions to improving the content and quality of our customer survey content and tools. Similarly, there was initially some employee resistance to our requirement that they document core and support processes; it was hard work. Eventually, however, the organization’s leadership teams answered the challenge and found significant benefits from having their process documentation online. In fact, they initiated numerous process improvements as a result of the effort.

We shall review further best practices in future postings. In summary, it’s time to get started in making your case for the CPO during these perilous times. ###