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PEOPLE Re:code

Chronicles & Paradoxes of Performance

Decoding the received wisdom of the working world — recruitment, management, culture.

All Paradox PEOPLE Re:code
Paradox #6 ● The harder an organization tries to avoid mistakes, the less it learns from them. What if the real issue wasn't the mistake… but what we do with it? +
In the two previous paradoxes, we talked about control and trust. To close this chapter, one question remains: what happens after the mistake? When a mistake occurs, the organizational reflex is often quick: more control, more sign-offs, more monitoring. As if the only possible response were to stop it from happening again. But a mistake that is reported can become a source of learning. And when it is truly analyzed, it becomes a lesson learned. ● What research tells us Chris Argyris distinguishes two ways of learning. Single-loop learning: we correct the mistake. Double-loop learning: we question what made it possible (the rules, the habits, the processes). Most organizations stop at the first. James Reason, and later Sidney Dekker, showed that a mistake is rarely the work of a single person. It is often the meeting point of several weaknesses: missing information, a poorly designed process, an incomplete handover, a particular pressure. Hence the idea of a "just culture": distinguishing honest mistakes from unacceptable behavior, so that only what deserves sanction is sanctioned. The U.S. Army, for its part, formalized the After Action Review around four simple questions: → What was supposed to happen? → What actually happened? → Why was there a difference? → What will we do differently next time? In other words: correcting the mistake is not enough. We need to understand what made it possible, without looking for someone to blame, and draw a lesson from it for the whole team. ● My point of view I believe we sometimes ask the wrong question after a mistake. We ask: "Who got it wrong?" When perhaps we should start with: "What is this mistake teaching us?" This does not mean denying accountability, or treating every mistake as acceptable. But distinguishing between mistakes, accountability, negligence and system failure seems essential to me. Learning from experience then turns an individual experience into collective learning: → understand what happened; → identify what can be improved; → correct what needs to be corrected; → improve practices; → pass on what has been learned. Because an organization that learns never to make mistakes mostly learns to hide them, work around them or avoid them. An organization that learns from its mistakes develops something else: its ability to improve. So a mistake is not yet a lesson learned. It becomes one when we are willing to look at it, understand it and turn it into a concrete solution for the future. In other words, this may be where the loop we opened with control and trust comes to a close: a mistake can only become a lesson learned if it could be spoken about in the first place. ○ Open question And in your organization, what happens to a mistake once it has been reported? Is it simply corrected, controlled, sanctioned… or turned into a real lesson learned? The Performance Paradoxes is a series of points of view on talent strategy, human capital and the conditions for creating value in organizations. Sources & References: Chris Argyris & Donald Schön, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (1978). Chris Argyris, "Teaching Smart People How to Learn," Harvard Business Review (1991). James Reason, Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents (1997). Sidney Dekker, Just Culture: Balancing Safety and Accountability (2007). U.S. Army, A Leader's Guide to After-Action Reviews, TC 25-20 (1993). #PeopleRecode #HopTeamAction #PeopleAndCulture #Management #Leadership #SustainablePerformance #LessonsLearned #JustCulture
🟠 The more we control, the more we believe we are securing performance. But what if the opposite were true? 🤔 When faced with uncertainty, our natural reflex is often to tighten control: more reporting, more approvals, more close monitoring. ➔ We multiply control points ➔ We reduce decision-making autonomy ➔ We document every step But this logic quickly reaches its limits when the task becomes complex or creative: external control mechanisms can undermine the very motivation they were intended to protect. In other words, controlling a competent team can sometimes constrain the very qualities that made it high-performing in the first place. 🔵 What research tells us In Drive, Daniel Pink shows that extrinsic rewards and tight control can improve performance on simple tasks, but can significantly undermine it when tasks require cognitive effort or creativity.³ Stephen M.R. Covey adds an economic dimension: trust reduces the costs of coordination and control, whereas distrust increases them.¹ ➔ Excessive control can reduce autonomy, a key driver of motivation ➔ Trust reduces the hidden costs of supervision ➔ High-trust environments foster initiative and innovation In other words, control comes with a real cost — in speed, engagement and creativity — and that cost is worth measuring. We often strengthen our control mechanisms as soon as doubt appears. It is a natural reflex, and one we rarely question. 🟢 My perspective We often frame control and trust as two opposing management styles. 💡 Perhaps we should see them instead as an economic trade-off: every ounce of control comes at a cost. Because control may sometimes reassure the manager more than it actually secures the outcome. In my view, the real question is not “Should I control or trust?”, but rather: “What am I willing to pay to keep control?” Control does not eliminate risk. It simply shifts its cost — from error to slowness. ○ What about you? In your own practice, how do you find the right balance between control and trust? The Paradoxes of Performance is a series of perspectives exploring talent strategy, human capital, and the conditions that enable organizations to create value. Sources & References ¹ Stephen M.R. Covey — The Speed of Trust ³ Daniel Pink — Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us In two weeks, we will explore a new paradox of performance.
🟠 We often say that trust must come first for a team to perform. But is that really how it works? 🤔 Before delegating, before accepting mistakes, before opening up decision-making, we often wait for a signal. ➔ We observe the team before trusting it. ➔ We test before empowering. ➔ We wait for evidence before letting go of control. Stephen M.R. Covey offers another perspective. Trust is not simply an initial asset. It is built through observable behaviours: ✔️ consistency, ✔️ transparency, ✔️ keeping commitments. And ultimately, we often wait for trust… without asking ourselves enough about what we are doing to make it possible. 🔵 What research tells us Covey's work, particularly in The Speed of Trust, highlights the importance of credibility — character and competence — as well as the behaviours that help build trust on a daily basis. Amy Edmondson, for her part, shows that psychological safety is built through interactions, and that managerial behaviours play a central role in this dynamic. Trust and psychological safety are two distinct concepts, but they share one essential point: both are built through the quality of everyday interactions and behaviours. ➔ Trust is built through repeated behaviours. ➔ Credibility contributes to building trust. ➔ The quality of interactions influences psychological safety. In other words, trust looks less like a starting point and more like the cumulative effect of consistent behaviours over time. Yet we often continue to wait for a signal of trust before acting differently. 🟢 My point of view We talk a lot about a “culture of trust” as something that must come first. Perhaps we should talk more about trust-building behaviours. “What do I do, day after day, that enables the other person to step into their role?” Because waiting for trust before acting can mean waiting a very long time. And this may be one of management's blind spots: 💡 We try to feel trust, when in reality, trust is built through consistency. 👉 Trust cannot simply be declared. It must be practised — even before it is returned. ⚪ What about you? In your experience, what has done the most to build trust within a team? 📚 Sources & References • Stephen M.R. Covey — The Speed of Trust • Amy Edmondson — Research on psychological safety and collective learning in teams The Performance Paradoxes is a series of points of view exploring talent strategy, human capital, and the conditions that enable organisations to create sustainable value.
There's a paradox we keep underestimating. We're often good at convincing a talent to join us. Are we just as good at creating the conditions that will make them want to stay? When an employee leaves an organization, the first explanation offered is often the same: "We got the hire wrong." But is that explanation always enough? A hire is a decision. Retention is an experience. An employee is hired for what they know how to do. But they often choose to stay — or to leave — because of what they experience day to day: the quality of their management, the clarity of expectations, recognition, growth prospects, the working climate, the feeling of being useful. In other words, the reasons that convinced them to accept a role aren't always the ones that determine whether they'll want to stay. What the research tells us Research from Gallup and McKinsey & Company shows that the leading retention factors aren't only tied to salary: the manager's role, the quality of the relationship with the team, a sense of progression, recognition, meaning in the work, trust in the organization. These dimensions have a lasting influence on engagement, performance and retention. My take I think we still too often attribute departures to a hiring mistake. Sometimes that's true. But it's far from the only explanation. When an employee leaves the company after just a few months, it's worth asking another question: what did we learn from this experience? Because retention isn't only a consequence of a good hire. It's built in the first few months, through interactions, management, culture and lived experience. To my mind, a hire doesn't end when the candidate accepts an offer. It really begins when the organization creates the conditions for their success. Companies don't retain their employees through their promises. They retain them through the experience they give them. Open question When one of your employees leaves your company... what's the first question you ask? Sources & references: Gallup – Workplace Research; McKinsey – People & Organizational Performance.
A degree reads in one line. Experience compares at a glance. A technical test scores out of 20. A CV is easy to measure. An interview is easy to structure. Tests are easy to score. By contrast, the clarity of a role, the quality of management, or the real culture of a team are far harder to assess upfront. Yet these are the very things that strongly influence whether a hire succeeds over time. We don't always choose our criteria because they're the most predictive. We often choose the ones that are simplest to measure. What the research tells us Schmidt and Hunter's landmark meta-analysis (1998), one of the most cited studies in work psychology, compared how well different selection methods predict an employee's future performance. Cognitive ability tests and structured interviews rank among the best predictors of performance. Work experience and seniority, often highly valued on a CV, show a markedly weaker predictive power. No single selection method, on its own, can reliably predict whether a hire will succeed. In other words, what we measure most easily isn't always what matters most. This imbalance partly explains why companies invest heavily in evaluating candidates… and far less in evaluating their own ability to help them succeed. My take To my mind, this isn't a lack of willingness — it's a measurability bias: we manage what we know how to measure, and we measure what's easiest to observe. Yet an organization's readiness — role clarity, a manager's real availability, the quality of onboarding, or cultural coherence — is much harder to score out of 20. Lacking simple indicators, these dimensions often take a back seat. So the real question isn't: "Should we stop evaluating candidates?" It's rather: "Are we willing to invest as much energy evaluating our own ability to help them succeed?" What's easy to measure isn't always what creates performance. Maybe it's time we learned to measure what actually matters. Open question Looking back at your last hire, what did you evaluate because it was easy to measure… rather than because it was truly decisive? Sources & references: Schmidt, F. L. & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology.
Recruitment is probably the only strategic investment whose success we celebrate… before it has even created any value. When a company invests in technology, completes an acquisition, or launches a strategic project, no one considers the investment a success on the day it's deployed. We expect it to: ➔ Produce a measurable result, ➔ Hold up over time, ➔ Concretely change how the team works. So why do we still consider a hire a success as soon as the contract is signed? In many organizations, the success of a hire is still measured by: the role filled, the time to hire, the offer accepted. As if the signature alone were enough to guarantee success. But the signature isn't the success. It's only the beginning of the story. What the research tells us SHRM's research shows that an employee who experiences excellent onboarding is 69% more likely to stay with the company for at least three years. The O.C. Tanner Institute confirms that the first few months have a lasting influence on engagement and performance. The value of a hire isn't created at the moment of signature, then. It's built when the new employee fully understands their role, finds their place in their environment, builds a trusting relationship with their manager, and has the conditions needed to express their potential. My take We often ask ourselves the wrong question: "Did we hire the right person?" The real question may lie elsewhere: "Did we create the conditions that will let this person succeed?" Because the performance of a hire never depends solely on the quality of a candidate. It also depends on the organization's ability to turn a promise… into value creation. This is where real talent strategy begins. Performance isn't born from recruitment alone. It's born from an organization's ability to turn a hired talent into lasting success. Open question At what point do we consider a hire truly successful? Sources & references: SHRM — Society for Human Resource Management, research on onboarding and retention; O.C. Tanner Institute — Global Culture Report.