The Performance Pipeline

It's not enough to build a company full of people with leadership skills. The Performance Pipeline digs deep into the real work of executing business results at each leadership layer.

• Filled with lessons and examples from the author's 40 years of experience
• Shows how to set performance standards, make sure the right work is being done, and remove performance barriers
• Illustrates how leaders can make the transition to the next level and achieve full performance

This book gives leaders in any industry an advantage over the competition.

Preface ix

Part One The Performance Pipeline Concept

Introduction Dealing with Pervasive Uncertainty 3

1 Defining Your Performance Pipeline 21

Part Two Expected Results at Every Level of Leadership

2 Enterprise Chief Executive Officer: Perpetuating the Enterprise 47

3 Group Managers: Portfolio of Businesses 71

4 Business Managers: Short-Term and Long-Term Profit 93

5 Function Managers: Competitive Advantage 113

6 Managers of Managers: Productivity 129

7 Managers of Others: The Enablers 147

8 Self-Managers: Delivering the Products and Services 175

Part Three Successful Implementation of the Performance Pipeline

9 Creating a Context for Performance 201

10 Enabling Layer Transitions 225

11 Implementing Your Performance Pipeline 245

Tool 1: Actual Performance Pipeline from Company E 261

Tool 2: Interview Questions 279

Acknowledgments 285

The Author 287

Index 289

"The text is a good read and has a lot to offer to the 2012 world of UK retail financial services." (Financial Adviser, 31st May 2012)

Stephen Drotter is CEO of Drotter Human Resources, a global company that specializes in CEO succession; executive assessment, selection, and development; and enterprise-level organization design. He was one of the original designers of GE’s succession planning process and ran human resources at INA Corporation and Chase Manhattan. He has a degree in economics from Amherst College. He is coauthor of The Leadership Pipeline and The Succession Planning Handbook for the Chief Executive.

From Stephen Drotter, coauthor of the bestselling book The Leadership Pipeline, comes the next-step resource designed to help leaders at every level succeed in an uncertain business environment. The Performance Pipeline is a groundbreaking book that is based on Stephen Drotter’s forty years of in-depth work with more than 100 companies worldwide. The book defines how work flows from top to bottom and reveals what results each layer must produce and what each layer must pass down to make the layers below successful.

Filled with illustrative examples and personal experiences, the book shows how Performance Pipelines work in real-world organizations. The Performance Pipeline uses a framework that is as easy to apply as it is to understand and addresses three critical business needs:

• How to improve business performance by defining the unique purpose of each layer and providing clarity and focus on the results to be achieved
• How to make all leaders successful by having leaders at every layer pass down to the layers below things they need to be successful
• How to help leaders make the transition to a new layer and how to remove performance roadblocks so leaders deliver the results required at their new layer

Drotter’s Performance Pipeline method was created to be flexible and can be adopted by companies of all sizes and in any industry. Using this book as a touchstone, professionals will learn how to define and install their own Performance Pipeline to obtain the benefits of role clarity and to sharpen the focus of all their leaders at all levels. Leaders and professionals will learn how to measure the work of leaders at every level.