Educational Leadership Commons^™

The Hard Work Of Improvement, Geoff N. Masters

School and system improvement

A common strategy for promoting improved employee or organisational performance is to place a strong focus on organisational results. The perceived advantage of focusing on results is that it clarifies and concentrates effort on the main game: the key purpose of the organisation's work. It also provides a basis for evaluating employee performance. As part of their drive for improvement, organisations also sometimes attach incentives to results, either in the form of rewards or sanctions. There is growing evidence, however, that focusing on results alone is an ineffective improvement strategy in many contexts and often leads to unintended behaviours. There …