The Inevitability of Tides

Thoughts on Performance

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

When I wrote some thoughts about performance last week, I was intrigued about how many people it seemed to resonate with. Performance is one of those things that has become so ubiquitous it has become invisible. It has become baked into our organisational culture along with its sibling, efficiency.

I was reflecting on that as I listened to “Farming Today” on Radio 4 this morning, and it struck me just how “baked in” performance has become.

I listen to Farming Today because the challenges faced by our agricultural sector are a daily reminder of what resilience really means. Aside from the staggering levels of bureaucracy they have to deal with, they also have to cope with the vicissitudes of weather, labour, and politics. Despite all that, or perhaps because of it, the levels of innovation I hear are inspirational.

It struck me how few in the farming sector use the word “performance”. I suspect it’s because they understand how little attention the elements wh…