Why is performance management back at the heart of priorities?
In many organizations, the strategy is clear on paper; the ambitions are strong; the directions are defined. Yet, when it comes to putting it into practice, the gap often widens between the strategic intent and the results achieved.
This is where performance management takes on even greater importance.
Performance has never really disappeared from companies’ concerns, but it is returning in a profoundly transformed context: scarcity of resources, increasing complexity, competitive pressure, transformation of work modes, the rise of artificial intelligence.
During our webinar «Deployment of the strategy: what role do managers play in driving performance?» (video replay below), hosted by Cyrille Chaudoit, co-founder of talenco, three speakers shared their experiences: Ilham Hobeich, DRH of OUTSCALE — Dassault Systèmes, Xavier Diry, CEO of DEKRA Claims International, and Jean-Baptiste Gouin, Founder and CEO of talenco.
Their exchange allowed for the posing of a central question: how to move from a clear strategy to effective execution on the ground?
The answer lies largely in the role of the manager: it is the manager who translates strategy into concrete priorities, who structure action, who monitor results, and who create the conditions for collective engagement.
In other words, to manage performance, it is not enough to set goals. Managers need to be given the clarity, the means, the responsibilities, and the practices to become true drivers of performance.
Summary
- What is performance management today?
- Why the real issue is the execution of the strategy
- The role of the manager in driving performance
- How to manage performance with clarity and simplicity
- The indispensable rituals for driving performance
- Managing performance: pilot, coach and manager
- What skills should managers develop?
- Performance management and AI: increased performance, but human-based
- FAQ: 7 key questions about performance management
What is performance management today?
An omnipresent concept, yet still poorly understood
Performance seems to be making a big comeback in management speeches. Yet, it has never really disappeared. What has changed is the context.
Companies must now do better with more limited resources. They must:
- accelerate while maintaining commitment,
- transform their organizations while maintaining their operational efficiency.
- Integrate artificial intelligence without losing the human added value.
In this context, the performance management It can no longer be reduced to purely financial logic.
Jean-Baptiste Gouin recalls an essential definition:
«Performance is first and foremost the ability to achieve a goal with efficiency.»
This definition is important because it introduces two inseparable dimensions: the result obtained and the means mobilized to achieve it.
A performing organization is therefore not just an organization that achieves its objectives. It is an organization that achieves them with the right level of efficiency, without wasting resources, without exhausting its teams and without losing the sense of its action.
Going beyond the mere financial performance
Ilham Hobeich highlights a common bias: « We have very often tended to label performance in terms of quantified results and finance. »
But, the performance Today’s is more global. It can be commercial, operational, human, collective, sustainable, social or environmental. It also depends on the ability to execute a strategy over time.
Managing performance therefore involves clarifying what the company is really trying to achieve. Before measuring, it is necessary to know what it is that we want to measure. Before demanding results, it is necessary to define the expected performance.
The real question is therefore not «Which indicators to follow?» but «What performance do we want to achieve?».
Why the real issue is the execution of the strategy
A strategy without execution remains an intention
The consensus of the participants is clear: In companies, the problem is not always the strategy itself… the real issue is its execution.
Xavier Diry sums it up with a strong phrase:
«A strategy without execution is an illusion.»
The phrase is direct, but it says the essential thing: a Strategy can be relevant, ambitious and well-structured, if it does not translate into concrete actions, in shared priorities and in followed plans, if it is not measurable, it remains theoretical.
The Driving performance It therefore begins when the strategy leaves the slides of the management committee and becomes an operational reality.
It is often at this point that difficulties arise: Too many objectives, competing priorities, too abstract language, lack of clear accountability, insufficient follow-up rituals.
The transition from “what” to “how”
The strategy sets the direction, but management must answer another question: how to achieve it?
It is here that the role of the manager becomes central. The manager is the one who transforms a strategic orientation into concrete actions for his team. He translates the “what” into the “how”. It transforms a collective ambition into operational priorities.
Without this translation, the strategy remains too detached from reality.
Xavier Diry insists on the need for an explanation: « The COMEX must absolutely explain the strategy. It must be understood by the middle managers who will generate the performance. »
The performance is therefore not determined from the top of the organization. It is built within the management chain through demanding work involving clarification, translation and follow-up.
The role of the manager in driving performance
The manager, the link between strategy and the field
If execution is the central issue, then the manager is a key actor.
The manager is not just a relay of information. He is the a point of articulation between strategic vision and the day-to-day reality of work. He or she must understand the strategy, make it accessible, transform it into priorities, and then support the teams in implementing it.
Jean Baptiste Gouin
Jean-Baptiste Gouin puts it clearly:
«We need clarity to tell the managers that they are responsible for this team performance.»
This phrase highlights an often underestimated issue. In many organizations, managers are expected to deliver performance without always explaining this responsibility within their role. They are asked to energize, coordinate, motivate, and manage emergencies. But they are not always clearly told that they are also responsible for ensuring that the organization’s goals are achieved. responsible for guiding the collective performance.
To manage performance, it is therefore necessary to clarify the management mandate.
A role often absent from management frameworks
The management of performance is sometimes treated as an implicit skill. It is assumed that managers know how to set priorities, follow action plans, make decisions, measure, adjust, and correct.
But in practice, these skills must be formalized, trained and accompanied.
The manager must know how to set a framework. He must know how to choose the right indicators. He must know how to organize follow-up points. He must know how to distinguish the essential from the accessory. He must know how to create commitment without sacrificing rigor.
The performance management Therefore, it is not just a matter of tools: it is a Managerial discipline in its entirety.
How to manage performance with clarity and simplicity
Clarity as the first performance lever
To enable managers to fulfill their role, a prerequisite is required: clarity.
The strategy must be understood. The objectives must be explicit. The priorities must be limited. The responsibilities must be assigned. The expectations must be formulated simply.
Ilham Hobeich recalls that:
«Clarity comes through writing, the key to commitment.».
Writing plays a major role here: it forces a formalization. It reduces divergent interpretations, transforms a general intention into a roadmap. It also allows one to follow commitments over time.
Objectives, roadmaps, OKRs, KPIs, action plans: these tools are not valued for their sophistication, but for their ability to make the strategy readable and actionable!
Simplicity as an indicator of performance
In already complex environments, organizations often add complexity to complexity: Too many indicators, too many priorities, too many committees, too many messages, too many acronyms.
Jean-Baptiste Gouin proposes another approach: « It’s a real strategy to bring back simplicity everywhere where it is feasible to better manage complex situations. This notion of simplicity is indeed a good indicator of performance. »
This idea is strong. Simplicity is not an excessive reduction of reality. It is a condition of execution.
The more understandable a strategy is, the more it can be implemented. The clearer the priorities are, the more teams can focus their energy. The more accessible the language is, the more alignment becomes possible.
Xavier Diry
Xavier Diry insists on this point:
«We need clear objectives, accessible language and a strategy that everyone can understand.».
Managing performance also means fighting against dispersion and ambiguity.
The indispensable rituals for driving performance
Structured and monitored action plans
Driving performance relies on very concrete practices.
We need action plans, identified leaders, deadlines, and milestones for monitoring the objectives. We also need a requirement for deadlines and accept to adjust when the results are not up to expectations.
Xavier Diry recalls that’« an action plan is followed at least once or twice a month ».
This frequency is important. A plan that is not followed becomes quickly a forgotten document. An unmanaged objective becomes an intention. An action without a responsible person becomes a grey area.
The role of the manager is therefore to maintain the positive tension between ambition and execution.
Monitoring is a prerequisite for managerial requirements
Managing performance does not mean constantly controlling employees; it requires discipline.
The manager must create rituals that allow for regular responses to a few simple questions:
- Are the planned actions progressing?
- Are the responsibilities being fulfilled?
- Are the deadlines being met?
- Are the obstacles identified?
- Are the necessary arbitrations being made?
- Do the indicators being monitored really allow us to make decisions?
This discipline avoids the tunnel effect. It allows for quick corrections and also provides visibility for each employee.
Managing performance then becomes a living process: we measure, we learn, we adjust, we move forward.
Focus and prioritization: breaking out of the dispersion
Another major issue concerns the overload of managers and teams.
Initiatives pile up, priorities multiply, and constant solicitations fragment attention. In this context, performance depends as much on what we choose to do as on what we accept to give up.
Jean-Baptiste Gouin emphasizes this:
«There is a real priority list! To ensure effective management, we must focus on a few selected topics.»
It is a key point of a good one performance management. The manager can't carry everything. Its role is also to protect collective energy, limit the number of priorities, align teams, and focus their efforts on the topics that truly create value.
Managing performance: pilot, coach and manager
The manager pilot: setting the framework and monitoring execution
Ilham Hobeich summarizes the expected role of the manager in a simple formula:«The manager is both a pilot and a coach.»
The first dimension is that of the pilot. The manager sets the framework, clarifies the rules of the game, translates the strategic objectives, monitors the results, organizes the rituals, and ensures execution.
Jean-Baptiste Gouin recalls that « The manager must define the framework, the rules and the explicit priorities ».
Without a framework, teams can be engaged, competent, and motivated, but they can also be scattered. A framework is not a barrier to autonomy; it is a prerequisite for it. The clearer the framework is, the more everyone knows where they can act, decide, and take initiatives.
The manager coach: developing the conditions for success
The second dimension is that of the coach. The coach manager accompanies each collaborator, develops their skills, listens to their difficulties, helps them progress, and creates the conditions for them to achieve their goals. Collective success.
This attitude is indispensable, because performance cannot solely depend on demand. It also requires providing the means to achieve the objectives.
Managing performance therefore means choosing between results and people. It is about articulating the two.
The manager must hold the team together and provide guidance. He must demand without exhausting, support without delegating responsibility, and give meaning while actually delivering the deliverables.
Holding managers accountable for generating performance
Accountability is another prerequisite for success. The manager is responsible for individual and collective performance.
Ilham Hobeich defends the idea that ’ The manager must be held accountable and must commit to delivering results ».
This empowerment requires several conditions. The manager must understand the strategy, know its scope to facilitate decision-making. He must have leeway and be able to take initiatives. He must also have the right to learn from his mistakes.
An organization that asks managers to be autonomous but centralizes all decisions creates a contradiction. An organization that demands performance but does not clarify responsibilities produces frustration.
The management of performance therefore relies on a clear contract: a shared goal, explicit responsibilities, means of action and regular monitoring.
What skills should managers develop?
1. Establish a clear framework
The first skill is the ability to set a framework.
A manager must be able to explain priorities, rules, responsibilities and expectations. This framework must be precise enough to guide action, but flexible enough to allow initiative.
It’s a delicate balance, but essential to optimize the framework for collaboration. Without a framework, autonomy becomes blurred; with too much of it, it disappears.
The role of the manager is to create an environment in which everyone knows what is expected and can act effectively.
2. Translate the strategy into concrete actions
The second skill is translating the strategy into strategic objectives.
The manager must be able to take a global direction and transform it into team goals, concrete actions, and operational decisions.
It is a translation skill, but also an arbitration skill. Not everything can be prioritized. Not everything can be launched at the same time. Not everything can be followed with the same intensity.
Managing performance therefore means knowing how to choose.
3. Pilot with method and simplicity
The third skill is methodical piloting.
The manager must follow useful indicators, organize the appropriate rituals, and adjust the action plans. He must also avoid falling into an excessive tool-based logic.
Jean-Baptiste Gouin recalls a phrase often cited in performance management:
«What cannot be measured does not exist.»
The measure is indispensable. But it must remain at the service of the decision. Too many indicators can cloud the management process. Too much reporting can distract from action.
The right measure is the one that allows us to learn, to decide and to act.
4. Develop flexibility and initiative
In an uncertain environment, performance also depends on the ability to adapt.
Xavier Diry emphasizes this: « Effective managers are those who are able to embrace change and have the necessary flexibility to cope with it. »
The effective manager is not the one who mechanically implements a fixed plan. He is the one who keeps the course while adapting the path. He knows how to decide quickly, accept uncertainty, learn from mistakes, and demonstrate discernment.
This flexibility becomes all the more important as the transformation is ongoing. The commitment of the employees depends on it.
Performance management and AI: increased performance, but human-based
Artificial intelligence is already transforming professions, work patterns and decision-making processes. But it does not replace the role of the manager.
Ilham Hobeich reminds us of this with a clear formula: « AI without the human factor does not work. »
The challenge is therefore not to oppose technology and management, but to articulate them intelligently.
AI can help analyze data, automate certain tasks, produce syntheses, speed up information gathering, or objectify certain indicators. But it does not replace strategic clarity, the ability to make judgments, human interaction, or collective engagement.
The performance management It must therefore become an enhanced management, but always centered on the human being.
Performance and transformation: a virtuous circle
Performance and transformation are often presented as two separate topics. In reality, they are closely linked.
Xavier Diry puts it this way:
«Performance is both the origin and the consequence of transformation.»
In other words, an organization must already have a certain level of performance to initiate transformation. But the goal of transformation is also to produce new performance, in an atmosphere of continuous improvement.
Performance fuels transformation. Transformation generates performance.
This virtuous circle only works if managers are equipped to drive it on the ground because it is they who must bring about changes, adjust practices, onboard teams, and maintain execution over time.
Performance is not determined; it is driven.
The performance management It does not consist of dashboards, financial targets, or well-presented strategic plans.
Performance is built on a daily basis. It requires a clear strategy, rigorous execution, limited priorities, explicit responsibilities, and fully equipped managers.
The role of the manager is therefore decisive. He is the translator of the strategy, the guarantor of the framework, the pilot of execution and the coach of the teams.
For manager performance, Organizations must move beyond ambiguity. They must give managers a clear mandate, means of action, governance rituals, and a real capacity for decision-making.
In a world in constant transformation, it is not just tools that will make the difference. It is managerial attitudes: clarity, demand, simplicity, empowerment and adaptability.
Performance is not decreed; it is embodied, followed, adjusted, and driven.
FAQ: 7 key questions about performance management
1. What is performance management?
Performance management refers to an organization’s ability to achieve its objectives effectively. It is not just about measuring results, but also about managing the means, priorities, responsibilities, and actions that enable these results to be achieved.
2. What is the difference between performance and driving performance?
Performance corresponds to the result achieved and the effectiveness of the means mobilized. Performance management refers to all the practices that allow for monitoring, adjusting, and improving this performance: objectives, indicators, action plans, follow-up rituals, and accountability.
3. Why is the role of the manager central in performance management?
The manager links the company’s strategy to action on the ground. He translates the guidelines into concrete priorities, organizes execution, monitors results, and supports the teams. Without this managerial link, the strategy often remains theoretical.
4. How can a manager drive the performance of his team?
A manager can drive performance by clarifying objectives, limiting priorities, defining responsibilities, regularly following up on action plans, and adjusting decisions based on the results achieved. Regular monitoring is essential.
5. What are the useful tools for managing performance?
The most useful tools are roadmaps, action plans, OKRs, KPIs, follow-up routines, and regular feedback. But their effectiveness depends primarily on the clarity of the framework, the simplicity of management, and managerial commitment.
6. What skills should I develop to be an effective performance manager?
Managers must develop their ability to set a clear framework, translate strategy into concrete actions, prioritize, manage with method, hold their teams accountable, and demonstrate flexibility in the face of change.
7. What is the link between performance management and transformation?
Performance and transformation are linked. A well-performing organization is better equipped to transform. And successful transformation must produce new performance. Managers play a key role in ensuring this virtuous cycle is sustained in the field.
