Performance Management is a long term process that focuses on continuous performance improvement or “change” for short. Its goal is to create a climate of shared understanding about what is to be achieved, and then developing people to increase the chance that it will indeed be achieved.
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(highlight:: However, after people used it for a while, they become quite accustomed with the look of it. So much in fact that they actually began to think of it as, well . . . good-looking. Gladwell believes there are two main reasons:
Our preferences are quite unstable, especially when we are first introduced to something new. This is because we need time to learn about the new object or idea.
We also tend to make up stories by picking up subtle clues when we are introduced to something new. This is because we do not have the language to talk about something new, radical, or daring.)
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- [note::Is this similar to "hedonic treadmill"? i.e. when we acclimate to any environment, our feelings about it gradually converge towards neutral emotions.
In other words: when people are either extremely happy or extremely frustrated by a given change, their feelings tend to temper over time.
Of course, there are exceptions to this phenomenon (e.g. stubborn, disgruntled employee), but it seems generally plausible. I think the positive impression → neutral aspect seems more plausible than the negative impression → neutral emotions.
What does the literature on "first impressions" have to say about this?]

We often say that people don't like change, yet if given a chance to learn about a new innovation or process, people will see the beauty in the idea if given a chance to learn about it. First impressions will threaten to derail innovation simply because people do not have the initial context to judge it, thus new ideas must be presented in ways that allow the users to learn about it, such as through prototypes, models, and trial and error.
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John Kotter, a Harvard Business School professor says that you need more than careful analysis, measurement tools, and management to help someone make a behavioral change; what you actually need to do is directly address people's feelings.
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- [note::"To change people's heads, you have to change their hearts"]

This holistic method works better as the change is reframed — rather than trying to motivate patients with the fear of death; they are motivated with the joy of living. Facing death for most people is much too frightening to think about, thus patients often go into denial; where as making daily life more enjoyable is a powerful motivator.
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- [note::Does this imply that, in general, communicating upsides of action is a more powerful strategy for facilitating change than communicating downsides of inaction?]

Flows are not just one element of social organization, they are the expression of the processes dominating our economic, social and symbolic life
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Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management tried to freeze the performance and then script it so that others had to follow it step-by-step. While Taylor's method focused primarily on the process itself; flow is more about helping people to develop themselves so that they can perform to changing conditions. The manager becomes more like Ten Holt in that he or she gives their workers a score to follow and conducts them, while at the same time giving them the freedom so that the situation is allowed to design itself, rather than just becoming a carbon copy.
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- [note::Management & coaching is about giving people the right tools and the right environment (i.e. conditions) that people need to thrive. In other words, performance management (and parenting for that matter) is like growing a garden.
Why is there such a wide chasm between status quo management (i.e. coercive, "I say, you do") and complexity-based, human-centered approaches like this? Perhaps because some jobs just require output that is uniform and regular and thus the people that do them are managed as if they're robots?]

Performance Management is not about you scripting people's lives, but rather about helping them to set goals, providing resources, and then coaching them to better performance.
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Knowledge requires viscosity, which uses rich sources and context; while information normally uses velocity for quick transfer. This is why knowledge can be so hard to come by at times — it takes time as knowledge, unlike information, is full of details and context; and at times, it can be quite subtle, thus one has to dig for it.
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- [note::Knowledge Transfer ≈ Performance Management ≈ Change Management]

Performance Management is quite similar as deeply rooted belief systems cannot be removed with a quick memo, rather they require details and contexts to give it substance.
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Thackara, J. (2005). In The Bubble: Designing in a Complex World. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press World.
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