CEOs are turning to HR to support numerouse transformation projects (now), drive performance improvement (yesterday) and find the next generation of leaders (fast).

These demands are exposing weaknesses and even failure in performance management in many organisations. Its all leading to senior HR and OD professionals urgently reviewing their performance management processes and practice.

Working through these issues with clients we see some common themes. If you aren’t convinced you are in a high performance culture, you might find these three questions a good place to start your own review.

Have goals changed in line with new strategies and tactics? The risk is that people are crazy busy, but change fails and results fall away.

Is there a clear consistent view of what good looks like? If not then performance evaluation, reward and talent management are likely to be erratic at best, and you can forget all idea of developing high performance.

Do managers avoid tackling poor performance? The biggest risk of all:  de-motivating the hard workers who have to pick up the slack,  reducing overall productivity and allowing low performance to become the norm.

If your review leads you think you need to take some preventive action now pick up our business briefing – the 3 big risks of performance management failure, and what you can do to avoid them here.

Its also got some suggestions for actions to take in the coming quarter that will give you some longer term impact.