Performance That Actually Matters

If your workplace performance metrics reward “busy,” you can end up with lots of motion and very little progress. We sit down to unpack why so many teams confuse activity with performance and how that mistake quietly corrodes results over time, from for-profit companies chasing the wrong KPIs to grant-funded organizations that can report meetings all day but still miss the outcomes funders actually want. 

We share a simple, practical performance management framework we keep coming back to: behavior plus activity plus work product equals outcome. That structure helps us diagnose what is truly broken when results slip. Is the work product below the competence standard? Is the activity inefficient or aimed at the wrong target? Or is behavior undermining everything through conflict, unreliability, or the kind of “walk on eggshells” dynamic that slows the whole system down. We also talk about why focusing only on outcomes can create toxic shortcuts, and why behavior often operates like a multiplier in real team performance. 

Then we get personal and practical: how leaders can set expectations early across all the buckets, not just technical quality, and how employees can regain control by focusing on what they can actually change. We dig into perfectionism, overengineering, and “wasted excellence,” including why delivering far beyond the requirement can drain capacity and even create problems for customers and teammates. 

Transcript

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Cold Open And Context

Karman 0:30

Good morning, Scott and Tammy. Good morning, Carmen. Hi, Carmen. It's kind of subdued for for Scott. So abnormal.

Scott 0:43

My meds are kicking in. We're good.

Tammy 0:45

We're good. All right. Settle in, Scott. Settle in.

Scott 0:49

Yeah, we're good. Yep. Yep. I got I got I had some I got some good brownies from Denver. We're good.

Karman 0:56

Well, you're at the training center today, right? Is this like a staff event that you're calling people in?

Scott 1:04

Yeah, we we had an amazing event here yesterday. Had 20 people here yesterday.

Tammy 1:09

And if you know anything about our training center, our training center is not really set up for 20 people. It's set up for like 12, right? So that's a lot of people.

Scott 1:22

We made it

Defining Performance Beyond Activity

Scott 1:23

work.

Karman 1:23

Well, last week on the podcast, one of the things we talked about um in a little way, we touched on was hours and output. And it's making me think about like the word performance and and what what does that really mean?

Tammy 1:44

Why do we keep having this conversation, Scott? Like this has been.

Scott 1:49

What does it mean to me or or why have people bastardized it so much?

Tammy 1:53

Well, they have bastardized it, but it's really interesting because when we're talking with organizations, there this conversation is like started to rise to the top. What is performance? And that's it's like to me, it's so clear, but it is not clear in the workplace, which is interesting.

Scott 2:12

Yes, yeah. So this whole like what the trend I'm seeing right now is many people are saying that performance is activity. I got the I did the task, I had the meeting, I write whatever that is. Therefore, I'm busy. And if I'm busy, I'm performing.

Tammy 2:32

And and I think part of that, in all honesty, is that's what's really easy to observe and really easy to measure, right?

Scott 2:42

Oh, yeah, it is super easy, yes.

Tammy 2:45

And there are organizations that we work with that are grant-based, and the grants will have things like how many meetings did you have, how many people showed up for those meetings, right? So they even we measure it based upon quote unquote activity, right? And I think that's where it got bastardized, is we started to want to measure things, and as we measured it, we measured what was easy, not necessarily what was the intent.

Scott 3:15

Yeah, I have started to form a perspective that if I'm gonna measure what's easy, I well, number one, I'm part of the problem, and it's a little bit lazy.

Tammy 3:25

A little bit lazy, it actually gives you a lot of things.

Scott 3:28

I'm trying to be very I'm trying to be generous here.

Tammy 3:31

Well, it's it's but the fact of the matter is if you're doing the easy thing, that's not helping your organization. And two, right, you are giving your organization and yourself a false security blanket, right? And that's that's like self-deceiving, yeah.

Scott 3:47

And I think what's what's hard is there are organizations that oh, well, we're profitable and our you know, our customers love us, so like why would why like it's working, it's working today. So this is three years from now, will it still be working? And how the hell do you know?

Tammy 4:05

To me, it's like the quiet, slow death. Okay, it's ever we keep saying, Hey, look, we're doing this activity, we're doing this activity, we're good. Okay, Sears and Robux, and then one day you wake up and you don't exist anymore because you were measuring the wrong thing, and that thing that you were saying, this is our measuring rod that says whether we're okay or not, that was absolutely something that gave you misinformation, and yeah, it was easy, okay, but there are there's company after company after company who's done the easy thing that no longer exists. Okay. And the same thing happens with uh a not-for-profit, right? They did the activity in the grant, but didn't get the outcomes of the grant. And for a while, you got your grant because you could say, Yep, we did this, we did this, we did this, we did this. Uh, but the person who was giving the money is like, but I'm not seeing any changes. And they're like, Well, not next year. I'm gonna give it to somebody else. And hopefully that somebody else goes, It's not this activity, it's different things that we should be looking at, even though the grant er is in that spot that says, Hey, I just want some proof of certain things. What they really want in the end is outcomes, guys. Everybody wants an outcome, something's different because we did

The Cost Of Easy Metrics

Tammy 5:31

work.

Scott 5:32

Yeah. Well, and I think it's when I think of performance, to me, I think there are four dimensions of performance.

Tammy 5:40

Okay.

Scott 5:40

Okay. So, and I'm just gonna say I am and then we can we can decide which ones we want to talk about. I think of it like an equation. Okay, so it's the attitude plus the activity plus the work product equals outcome, right? I have I have to not be a jackass. I have to do something to make something, which that could be a report, that could be something I physically make, whatever that is, that gets me an outcome, some sort of result. All of those are performance. So to me, if I only pay attention to outcome, I wind up like Wells Fargo. We have false accounts, we have these other things because I'm focused on the outcome, the sale, not the not the balancing piece of am I doing the right things in the activity and am I delivering the right work product? So to me, I look at I have to have all of those to truly have good performance. Because if I only look at outcome, then I would say, oh, that sales rep is a asshole. Everybody hates working with them, but boy, they're a rainmaker. And we have that and we hear that, right? Oh, but they're so good. They know, you know, they know these things. Well, they know the activity and they know the work product, but they're a jerk. That's not good performance. And what's interesting is when you talk to people, they're like, Oh, yeah, I wish they wouldn't be like that, but I'm unwilling to take the action. They're really not a good employee. So to me, I look at like I have to have things in all of those, or it's really not performance.

Tammy 7:15

And Scott, I I agree with kind of your four buckets. I think I want to shift one of them just a tidbit. Okay.

Scott 7:23

Totally fine. I yeah, I've been thinking about there's one I'd like to shift. Let's see if we're the same.

Tammy 7:28

So it's the attitude I get, right? And for us, we usually talk about that in terms of how they behave, it's how you interact with them as a human being. So I can use the word attitude to explain that.

Scott 7:40

Attitude, behavior, yeah.

Tammy 7:42

Right? Activity, I yep, there's certain activities that do have to happen in a certain way, and it has to be done in a way that's effective, right? And efficient in that particular spot. So that makes sense to me. Work product. I I need a qualifier on work product. Yeah, our work product has to be at a certain level of competence. With it, I mean yes, yeah.

Scott 8:06

To me, I can define good for each one of those. In my mind, that's how I would think about it. You're gonna define what is good for that work product, right?

Tammy 8:16

Because just producing something isn't enough. I have to produce the right thing, right? At the right time with the right level of quality for whatever that thing is, 100%.

Scott 8:29

Yeah.

Tammy 8:29

And so I need that qualifier in terms of work. So that was my when you first said it, I was like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Scott 8:37

And as I've thought about this, I'm like, okay, how do we explain it in a foundational simple way? And because I think of it like an equation, well, if my work product is substandard, that's gonna negatively impact my outcome. True. Okay. If my attitude or my behaviors are shitty, it's gonna impact something down the line. If the activity is taking too long or it's not the right, it's going to impact the outcome.

Tammy 9:09

So this is interesting because I like how you just said that. That makes sense to me. And I'm gonna put it back in sales, and sales is so easy. It's one of like it's one of the simplest, like to figure out, you know, if you truly are in this place where you have performance, right? So it's one of the easy ones. When a salesperson is hitting their numbers, okay, we traditionally don't look at their activity. Okay. Because we know that they must be doing some of the right things to get us there, right? When a salesperson is hitting their numbers, but their entire support team around them hates them and is like screaming and yelling and upset, right? We typically look at their attitude because their support folks don't want to support them any longer. We know that there is a spot there, okay. And so it, I think you actually have hit on something there that if you don't have above the line attitude, activity, and work product, right? What we have defined as your outcomes will be impacted and we'll see it, right? And then we can go back and say, okay, our outcomes aren't there. Which one of these things aren't in line? Which one of these things do we need to look at that you know, that we're saying, okay, there's an issue. Where's the issue? What's subpar and how where do we need to elevate? That's I kind of like what you're talking about. This is making sense.

A Simple Performance Equation

Scott 10:49

Yeah, and and so to me it's it's okay. How then, if if that really is performance across those four things, you know, maybe I like I'm not gonna sit and debate, you know, are they all equal? Uh maybe. The one piece I've thought about is attitude actually a multiplier. So does you know, is it really 3x your attitude?

Tammy 11:12

Why would you even say that?

Scott 11:13

Well, yeah, in my experience, when you talk when you start to look at, well, why why are people leaving? Why do they not like each other? Why do you fire them? It usually is in the attitude bucket, it usually isn't anything else. So it's so it's super fascinating to me. Like, okay, is that one actually more important than others? The other thing is, as an individual, you can absolutely control your attitude and your activity. I don't need a boss. I don't like, yeah, maybe I need to be trained on what I need to do, but I can control that. I can control my destiny there. Those are two levers each individual can control. You don't usually get to control what work product that you get to make. That that's determined by the organization. But a lot of times you get you get to have some control over the activity that you do to get that work product, right?

Tammy 12:13

Do you know this concept? And we do ask this question. I ask this question all the time. Okay, I just want you to think about the people that you work with or the people that you lead. And you can think about it from the company that you're in right now or companies that you've been in in the past, and start writing down what drove you crazy. Okay. What were people like what was happening? What were people doing? That person or that situation drove you crazy. And if you write that list down and you think about it, I mean, I can literally be like, yep, yep, yep, yep. And I people in my, I when I actually think about that, I can see their faces and I can write down what it was that was driving me crazy about that person. And if you step back and you look at that list, okay, and we do this in class a lot, right? In workshops, look at that list. What does that list have in common? And when we look at kind of the umbrella of what those words are, very seldom are they not competent at doing the work that we've hired them to do. Very seldom, because organizations get rid of people for the most part who are not competent at doing the work. Okay. It is almost always how they are interacting with the people around them. That's behavioral. That is that attitude word. So I might actually change that word from attitude to behavior, okay, in that spot to make it clearer. And Scott, when I think about that, you're right. Because when I'm working with someone and the way that they interact with others is I have to walk on eggshells, or I have to constantly have fights with them, or I have to really like, hey, you need to get this done so I can get my thing done. So I'm constantly pushing, pushing, pushing. That actually slows everything down. If I can't trust them to do what they said they were going to do, it slows everything down. And in that particular process, it probably does have more impact. It does probably have a two or a three or four times impact compared to the other stuff. Because again, if we hire an accountant who doesn't have the skill set to do accounting, we'll fire them. But if we hire an accountant who's a jerk, sometimes we keep them.

Scott 14:40

Yeah. Well, the other thing that I I also think about if I if I look at performance across those four buckets. And if I have someone who, oh, I don't think they're performing, I can actually go back and say where. And I can probably pinpoint where is it? Is it, oh, their work product is no good, or is it, and I can say, oh, I need to apply a solution or some problem solving on that, on that category, on that bucket. Now, if their outcome is no good, then it's some combination of the other three that's driving that. And I have to go, I have to go backwards down that.

Tammy 15:20

Well,

Why Behavior Gets People Fired

Tammy 15:21

think about the number of leaders in this case, right? So, hey, if our work product, if I don't know how to do accounting, right? A leader, a manager can go back to that person and say, hey, you know, you're making errors here, or like, let's, and so we talk about like how do you get the technical skills to get the work product? Leaders are really happy to have those conversations.

Scott 15:44

Yeah, that's yeah, that usually is really straightforward, right?

Tammy 15:47

But how often are leaders willing to have this conversation about how you're spending your time, activity, and how often are leaders having the conversations about how you go about interacting with human beings? We ignore those first two buckets, behavior and activity. Okay. We typically only have conversations about work product, and and then you wonder why we are not performing. There it is, folks. We're not having the conversations or setting the expectations in those other things.

Scott 16:20

I mean, for me, I look at it and I say, okay, for each individual, if I'm a leader, for each individual, there's something in that equation that I need to find the lever. And more importantly, I need to be willing to have the conversation wherever that falls, wherever it falls. And if I'm unwilling to have the conversation, then I have to I have to hold the mirror up and say, suck it up, buttercup. Either accept that performance is going to be not where you want it, or take action. But in either case, I I either need to take action or accept it and stop

Leaders Must Talk Early

Scott 16:56

complaining.

Tammy 16:57

I love that. And and I think maybe that underlying message in this is if you are a leader, right, to have the conversations with your staff, not after there's a problem, but before. The way that we measure performance in this organization is behaviors, activity, and work product. We're going to look at all three of those things. And so please understand, right? That's how we measure it, that's how we look at it, that's how we consider it. And you need to interact with others in a way that makes it easy for you to work with. You need to do the right activity, not just activity, activity that helps us get to the goals, outcomes that we're looking for. And you need to produce quality work product. Those three things, that's equal performance, and that's how we are going to measure you. So I'm going to tell you up front. And then as an employee is going through their work life with you, you as a leader need to be having those conversations with them and touching all those buckets. Now, if you're not a leader, recognize that you still are responsible for those things, right? You still have the opportunity to say, how do I work with others? Am I easy to work with? Am I doing the right stuff? Or am I spending time on things that add no value? We call that wasted excellence, right? And am I producing quality work? Right? Is my work product meeting the standards or exceeding the standards of my department and my organization? I can control those things.

Stop Overengineering The Work

Scott 18:36

Yeah. And you said something that was like, oh, wait, I also need to right size the work, the quality of the work product. So if the work product quality requires three things, and you could deliver seven, you deliver three, maybe four. Ten percent more, and you say I'm good. Because what happens is that bleeds over into activity, and I'm doing excess activity to a work product that is not needed. I over-engineer. And then I'm out of capacity. Fucking you did this to yourself.

Tammy 19:12

What is required?

Scott 19:14

What is required versus require you as an individual to redefine good? Because this is where perfectionism comes in and ideology comes in. It's a word I apparently can't say, right? This thing of oh, but what if we did this and we could do this and this and this? Well, do you need to do that? It's really cool. I love the passion. Is that important right now? Right now, it might be do these three things. Yeah, is that there? Yep, right. Is it and I'm not saying don't be a visionary, I'm not saying don't deliver more value. I'm saying, is it worth it across the whole? Right. And that's triple and quadruple check our data entry. Why?

Tammy 20:06

Why, why? And that piece, which is, I think, is an amazing spot, especially as I'm the individual that is doing the work in that space, is recognizing that you need to match the expectations of the organization and the expectations that the organization fits with the client. Not even just what the client says, it's the organization that is serving that particular client. And when we deliver 100% more than what the organization requires, right, we are actually taking our time, right? Our the resource of me and putting it in a place that is not helping the organization move forward. And that's hard. It's hard for a lot of people because of that perfectionism thing, because of that uh spot where you think you're an imposter, those types of things. It's like they keep wanting to ante in in that particular bucket. Find out what good looks like. What does success look like and meet that standard, plus a tidge, a tidge, not the Grand Canyon.

Scott 21:12

Well, and we have to remember if we're delivering at 150%, you are setting a precedent.

Tammy 21:19

Well, not only that, Scott, let's go to manufacturing. Your client has asked you to create a hundred widgets. Okay. You develop 150 widgets and send them off to your client. Okay. That client doesn't.

Scott 21:31

I know what I would say is the client, thanks for free the free 50 widgets.

Tammy 21:35

Or they'll say, I don't have room for 50. I only needed 100. And now you want me to make room in my warehouse or whatever that thing is. The fact of the matter is I only wanted a hundred. So thank you for doing it if I can use it later. But you could also cause me all sorts of problems by giving me 50 more. Okay. So reality is the client says, This is what I need. The organization says, Yep, that's what we're going to do. We have to meet that. And again, I'm okay with the titch because think about this. If I delivered 100, let's say I actually have some of those that are not perfect. It's what we in Iowa, it's corn season. You don't get a dozen, you get 13. Why? Because there's probably an ear in there that's not great. And so you get the extra one just in case you got a bad ear. I don't charge you for that. It's a tid more and it makes me happy because I'm oftentimes get ears or portions of ears that aren't perfect, right? So I can understand a tig bit, but should I give them 18 ears of corn? Should I give them 24 years of corn when they've only paid for 12? No, I shouldn't. And that is that thing that sometimes we make a mistake as an individual inside of an organization in the work product space. I actually like that. That was a really good catch, Scott.