We've got great posts on performance management in this week's Three To Read.  We delve into the past to look at Deadly Diseases in Management and then back to the future to the concepts of management by community, ROWE and other 'modern' techniques of encouraging employee engagement only to find that views were ever the same - heady stuff!

John Hunter at the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog posted: Dr Deming web cast on the 5 deadly diseases.  It's a short post summarising the original five 'deadly diseases' and the two later identified by Dr Deming and includes the video below.

I liked the video for two reasons; nostalgia for the time I spent reading Deming as an undergraduate and the highlighting of issues that are still critical today - employees understanding what the organisation does, retention of managers and managing performance.

Perhaps in response to the approach of management by objective discussed by Dr Deming, we have Management by Community a post from Hutch Carpenter of Cloud Ave.  In this post we learn about the management practices of W.L. Gore and the importance of peer perception and 360 degree feedback as motivating factors.

Championing this type of approach is Dan Pink in his talk for TED on The Surprising Science of Motivation.  In the video (below) Pink makes a compelling case for moving away from outdated extrinsic 'carrot & stick' methods of motivating for some types of job and moving to intrinsic methods that embrace "autonomy, mastery and purpose" as a way of cultivating truly meaningful employee engagement.

OK so this last recommendation is a video rather than an article to read but I hope that you enjoy it anyway.

I find it fascinating that although Dr Deming's interview was filmed more than 25 years ago yet there is an uncanny similarity in his views on performance management and those described by Hutch Carpenter and Dan Pink.  What do you make of this?

Tags: engagement, morale, motivation, performance, performance management, productivity, retention, talent, Talent Management

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