Book review: Chief Performance Officer, by Anthony L. Politano

Can you imagine a time when you’re a C-level executive, and your total charter is about the measurement and management of organisational or company performance?

Anthony Politano can. And in fact, for many people it’s already their reality.

In his book, Chief Performance Officer: Measuring What Matters, Managing What Can Be Measured, Anthony talks of what he sees the Chief Performance Officer should do, and the tools they need to support their role.

I bought the book with the expectation of discovering so much more about the CPO role than the author delivered.

Anthony comes from a very strong IT background, and it’s clear how much this has influenced his views of the CPO: he describes a CPO as “the heads-up display for the CEO”.

It reads as though the CPO is a human version of an information dashboard. They are responsible for the collection of data, consolidation of this data into reporting systems, and the communication of this information to those who will use it.

The true potential of the Chief Performance Officer role is to be the leader of an organisation’s or company’s performance culture. The CPO leads people from top to bottom to adopt evidence-based decision making, to measure what matters, and to use measures to guide the improvement of business processes and results for stakeholders.

A CPO needs a range of skills and tools to do this: they must have an excellent appreciation of strategic and operational planning and execution, excellent skills in helping people to choose relevant measures, implement those measures and use those measures in decision making. They must be great with people, and skilled at facilitating people through the fears and concerns and complexities of meaningfully measuring what matters.

The CPO is so much more than “a heads-up display for the CEO”. They are leaders, and leaders in a field that most organisations and companies struggle with more than any other management discipline. Mastering performance measurement and performance management is more about people issues than about the technology and tools that this book focuses on.

Read it along with Dean R. Spitzer’s “Transforming Performance Measurement” and you’ll see what I mean.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stacey Barr is the Performance Measure Specialist, helping strategic planners, business analysts and performance measurement officers confidently facilitate their organisation to create and use meaningful performance measures with lots of buy-in. Sign up for Stacey’s free email tips at www.staceybarr.com/202tipsKPI.html and receive a complimentary copy of her renowned e-book “202 Tips for Performance Measurement”.