As a manager, you want to know if your organization is doing a good job. And you know that you can’t find that out unless you measure what you’re doing and compare it with past performance, future goals—and the performance of other organizations.

But you also know that if you start a performance measurement program you’ll encounter challenges, and some of these may be frightening to your staff—and even to you:

• Fear of resistance and naysayers
• Fear of increased workload
• Fear that your organization isn’t doing as good a job as you think you’re doing
• Fear that results will be “spun” to make you and your organization look bad
• Fear of the “unmeasurable.”

Fear of Resistance

Just about any organizational change sparks anxiety and resistance, and a manager may be afraid they can’t be overcome: We’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work. You can’t measure what I do. A lot of factors outside our control influence our performance.

Among employees, misperceptions abound. The term “performance measurement” comes loaded with images of stopwatches, bureaucracy, and bean counting.

It’s best to face the resistance head-on, listen to opposing viewpoints, and prepare yourself with persuasive responses:

“We tried that before, and it didn’t work.” A positive response is “Yes, we’ve tried other ways to improve our operations, but this one is different.” Explain the goals. Let resisters know why you’re initiating a performance measurement program, and what you plan to do with the data to improve management. Emphasize that the goal is to better understand the operations of each department.

“You can’t measure what I do.” A positive response is “It seems that way, but everything we do can be measured in some way. We’ll start with some of the things that are easy to quantify. We may be able to get ideas from other cities that are measuring a similar program.”

“A lot of factors outside our control influence our performance.” A positive response is “You’re right. We don’t have control over everything that affects our performance. But we still need to know how we’re doing and see if our measures are moving in the right direction over time.”

Experienced managers have made some general recommendations for countering the resistance and calming the fears of staff:

• Start small. Select just a few key measures at first. That reduces the extra workload, and sometimes staff become eager to add measures once they start seeing results.
• Make it worth their while. Even if you can’t offer financial incentives to those who are measuring performance, you can help get the word out that those who are better able to justify their budget proposals with data are more likely to see favorable decisions.
• Don’t make it punitive. Staff may believe the ultimate goal is downsizing, and it’s important to help them see that the goal is improvement.
• Make performance measurement part of job expectations and include it as a factor in the annual review process. That does not mean that each employee needs to be held accountable for improving things beyond their control (e.g.,“Increase building permit valuation by 20%”), but it may mean that they will be evaluated on the turnaround time for various types of routine permits and that as part of regular reviews, you will engage in a larger discussion about the goals and performance of the department.

Fear of Increased Workload

It’s inevitable that a performance measurement program will require an initial investment in staff time and perhaps software. But you can minimize the investment:

• Again, start small, using just a few key measures. Performance measurement doesn’t have to be done all at once.
• When you begin, look for existing data sources that don’t require setting up new collection systems—for example, financial data, participation records for municipal libraries and recreation facilities, department records that quantify activities and length of time from initiation to completion, crime incident reports, and recent citizen satisfaction surveys.
• Try sampling your data. For example, select a month of typical permitting activity and track the processing times and customer feedback. If times are satisfactory and complaints are nonexistent or minimal, you may not need to devote resources to measuring that service—at least not until you tackle more urgent improvements.

Fear of Looking Bad

Collecting performance data can be scary, because you may discover that some parts of your organization are not performing as well as you believed. Add to that the fact that whatever you collect may become grist for public records requests, disgruntled bloggers, public hearing gadflies, and local media seeking a scoop about “government inefficiency.”

During the first year of data collection, you may be working through bugs in the collection process. While it may seem premature to report results to the public, you need to weigh that against the appearance of hiding unfavorable numbers. Here are two possible approaches:

• In the early stages, maintain a low profile and position the collection effort as a work in process that is being used to establish definitions, identify data sources, and test the reliability and meaningfulness of the data.
• Go ahead and share early results with the public, explaining that the numbers are a baseline that you’ll use to improve the data collection system and to chart performance moving forward.

If the results are publicly available, prepare yourself to respond to questions or challenges. If some of the results are disappointing, arm yourself with a plan and timeline for improvement. You’ll be better served by addressing any deficiencies openly. And, of course, mine the results for good news that you can publicize as well.

Fear of the “Unmeasurable”

For many local government programs, performance indicators are relatively simple to quantify and measure: number of days from code violation complaint to resolution, park maintenance costs per acre, police response time.

But other programs have goals that may seem too elusive to measure—for example, “community well-being,” “employee morale,” “quality of life.”

For “unmeasurable” goals, you can probably establish intermediate or “proxy” measures that can be quantified. For example, “quality of life” can be assessed by using intermediate measures like these:

• Citizens’ ratings of their neighborhoods, parks, and local government services
• Citizens’ reported feelings of personal safety
• Attendance at community activities
• Park acreage per 1,000 population
• Presence of other local amenities, whether provided directly by the jurisdiction or not (e.g., water parks, cultural arts centers), and related performance statistics (e.g., days of art center bookings)
• Outside agency ratings (e.g., school district scorecard)
• Tourism related measures (e.g., hotel room nights, transient occupancy tax revenues).

To summarize, the “fear factor” does not need to prevent you from initiating a performance measurement and management program in your local government. In the long run, the benefits will outweigh the costs—both organizational and financial. You and your staff will be able to identify opportunities for improvement, make positive changes in the way you deliver services, and demonstrate successes to elected officials and the public.