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Management Services Winter 2012


“Performance support makes it easier for people to excel at difficult and important jobs by emulating the approaches of their more successful peers.”


creativity when people are so preoccupied with compliance and conformism. With built-in controls performance support can enable people to innovate and develop bespoke responses and ensure compliance with legal, regulatory and corporate requirements. Users can be freed from dependency upon particular locations. When customers are enabled to help themselves unnecessary activities can wither away. ‘New governance’ includes such missing elements and focuses on the behaviours of directors and boards. ‘Bottom-up’ ‘new leadership’ embraces helping and supporting. There is more emphasis upon implementing strategy, building learning into ways of working and quick adaptation. Affordable, flexible and sustainable 24/7 support enables customers, staff and business partners to excel at critical activities. Importantly, the benefits of ‘new governance’ can be experienced within a few months and independently of existing people, cultures, sectors and systems. With mankind running out of time the ability of performance support to quickly change behaviours enables more rapid responses to evolving circumstances. Investigations I have led have resulted in over 20 published


reports that identify critical success factors for important corporate activities such as winning new business, building customer relationships, pricing, purchasing and creating and exploiting know-how. Knowledge of what top performing directors, their teams and key work groups do differently in these areas can be captured and shared. Jessica Fries, Director of the Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, highlighted the extent to which we are living beyond the capacity of the planet. The focus on implementation and providing better support in ‘new governance’ and ‘new leadership’ is relevant to sustainability. They can make it easier for people to behave in a sustainable way and avoid damaging and unsustainable activities.


Convention study visit The 2012 London Global Convention study visit was to the University of Greenwich main campus at the Old Royal Naval College. Professor Charles Kao an alumnus of the University won the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery that led to the breakthrough in fibre optic technology which allows global communication via the internet. Using affordable technology such


as mobile phones and tablets performance support can enable sustainable behaviour and choices across global communities.


One can reduce cost and waste by making people aware of better alternatives. Typically only 30-40% of corporate computer storage space is used. Cisco Systems provided its global sales force with performance support to make people aware of the benefits of storage networking. In addition to reduced demand for rare resources, sales achieved by the first few users to be interviewed generated a return of 38 times the project cost within six months.


Christopher Gleadle pointed out the importance of profitability and sales and that each day sales meetings and calls result in millions of conversations. With appropriate support all such interactions could be an opportunity to increase understanding of the consequences of consumption decisions and help people to make less damaging and more sustainable choices.


Increasingly relationships with employees, customers and other stakeholders need to be mutually beneficial if they are to last. Companies in various sectors have used sales support tools to engage and communicate with prospects,


increase revenues and reduce costs while at the same time enabling quicker and bespoke responses to individual customer requirements. Performance tools can also support collaboration across supply chains. Cisco has used them to engage channel partners and increase their understanding, while B&Q has employed the approach to make it easier for suppliers to meet its quality requirements, including sustainability considerations. Fostering collaboration across organisations is important, especially, as Rachel Huxley, CEO of Peterborough Environment City Trust pointed out, for addressing the sustainability challenges of cities.


Appropriate support can enable more responsible purchasing decisions. Dr Ola Ullsten, the Convention Chairman, reminded delegates it was the fiftieth anniversary of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. The death of song birds was the accidental consequence of pesticide use. Nomix used a support tool to make people aware of the environmental damage and health risks of spraying. One recipient bought the company as a result of finding its explanation of the Nomix alternative so compelling.


Performance support


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