Metrics across countries

ADane, an Italian, a German, a Frenchman, and a Spaniard participate in a survey about KPIs. This may sound like the start to a joke meant for late-night HR manager conventions. Instead, it’s a summary of a recent survey conducted by Maize, involving over 2000 individuals from these countries. This survey serves as an invaluable starting point for us to question if people in these regions are evaluated differently and whether they harbor contrasting attitudes and opinions towards performance measurements.

Here’s a spoiler: they do have quite a bit in common. After all, each of these participants hails from European countries with long-standing capitalistic economies partnered with equally lengthy histories of workers’ rights. Beneath this shared history, however, there’s room for unique narratives. Despite their uniformity, these regions harbor certain differences. As we approach the final act, we’re left to unravel a mystery: do these distinctions merely confirm our pre-existing stereotypes, or are they influenced by deeper social or cultural factors?

Act 1: the commonalities

Jokes of this kind often focus on a simple task that every culture approaches differently. Usually, the punchline presents an unexpected twist: in our context instead, many similarities exist across workers in diverse business sectors, jobs and nationalities.

The measure of performance typically centers around a team’s or a department’s results, heavily hinging on the quality of the output, then the quantity. This method is likely to come from the shift to today’s knowledge economy. There’s a recognition that productivity cannot occur without the collaboration of a diverse team. Merely measuring pure output in such a setting won’t yield much value if quality isn’t maintained.

Nonetheless, intriguing differences emerge from the shared characteristics of the four foundational EU economies, plus another that joined in 1986. Presumably, all five have fully internalized the approach to a social market economy.

Interestingly, the evaluation of performance seems identical across all five nations. The direct manager, under the company’s management’s supervision, undertakes this task. This exhibits the “process follows structure” principle, reflecting the common hierarchical formation of these organizations. Unsurprisingly, concepts like cooperatives, holacracies, or other governance forms are barely represented in these figures.

This leads us to ponder: is this some kind of anti-joke? It might sound something like, “Why did management measure performance? To do performance reviews!”.

Act 2: the differences

Interestingly, despite a superficial commonality across all these countries, a bit of statistical deep-diving reveals some intriguing differences – whether it’s in dealing with a lack of motivation, or in deciding who is best placed to measure performance.

The first major discrepancy lies in the response to the question, “Who would you prefer to evaluate your performance?”. While there seems universal agreement that one’s direct boss is the most suitable evaluator, France and Italy opt for company management (in simpler terms, my boss’s boss). Conversely, Denmark and Germany bestow this honor onto their immediate teammates (relegating company management to the bottom of the list), while Spain champions peers as the most reliable performance judges. Remarkably, France emphasizes soft skills over the quality of output in its evaluation criteria, a stance that runs counter to every other country’s viewpoint.

Next, we delve into what shapes one’s perspective: there appears to be a cohort that values relationships with colleagues and work environment as topmost factors, and another that affirms performance primarily depends on oneself (a view held mainly by Germany and Denmark). Although factors such as work environment, tools, and colleagues contribute, the consensus is that one ultimately controls their own performance. Intriguingly, in countries with a strong individualistic ethos, “collaboration” is equated with fun, possibly indicating a longing for better teamwork and camaraderie.

Lastly, how do our respondents react when things hit the fan and motivation dwindles? There’s unanimous agreement that discussing the issue with the boss isn’t the go-to strategy – are they the problem or the solution? However, when it comes to choosing a different approach, there’s a distinct divide across Europe: the French, Italians, and Germans opt for time off; while the Danes and Spanish favor candid conversations with colleagues.

Act 3: the Causes

At this point, an interesting question arises: Are these differences simply random phenomena highlighted by our survey, pertinent only to the measurement of performance, or do they represent broader disparities in how individuals perceive their roles within society?

There’s considerable literature and numerous relevant surveys detailing cultural and social differences worldwide, each with varying areas of focus. Some focus on economic freedom or labor conditions, while others contemplate different aspects of life – like the Human Development Index or the OECD’s Better Life Initiative. However, these don’t necessarily offer insights into our chosen group of countries, which likely belong to a somewhat uniform sample.

Conversely, cross-country comparisons with a more cultural focus seem more effective in explaining the disparities in responses.

One such comparison, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory, originated from surveys of IBM employees conducted during the late 60s. This theory, continually evolving since then, identifies differences among cultures across six dimensions:

• Power Distance Index (PDI)
• Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV)
• Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)
• Motivation toward Achievement and Success (MAS)
• Long-term Orientation versus Short-term Orientation (LTO)
• Indulgence versus Restraint (IND)

And here’s how our sample countries rank across them:

Two metrics among international surveys relate strongly to the results of our survey on performance metrics: the power distance index and the individualism versus collectivism variable. The power distance index measures the degree of acknowledged and unquestioned hierarchy, and how power is distributed across this hierarchy. On the other hand, the individualism versus collectivism variable measures the extent to which relationships tie individuals into groups.

The second dataset we used comes from the World Values Survey – a research undertaking that has been studying values and beliefs across over 100 countries since 1981. The WVS assesses, tracks and scrutinizes a diverse range of aspects: democracy support, tolerance of foreigners and ethnic minorities, gender equality support, the role religion plays in society, fluctuations in levels of religiosity, the effects of globalization, attitudes towards the environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, insecurity, as well as subjective well-being.

The data reveals striking differences between nations, underscoring how cultural values shape attitudes and behaviors towards performance metrics. These contrasts serve as a significant backdrop for interpreting how respondents engage with performance indicators, which in turn, inform their biases and preferences.

Firstly, survey data seem to offer valuable insights into the primary factors contributing to performance. Denmark and Germany, countries that exhibit high levels of individualism and trust in institutions as gauged by the World Values Survey (WVS), attribute their performance to a combination of individual efforts, the environment, and available tools. On the flip side, countries with lower scores in individualism and institutional trust emphasize the role of collegial relationships as a key component.

Secondly, we noticed a correlation between differing power distances across countries and responses to the question on who should evaluate performance. Countries with lower power distances, such as Denmark and Germany, inclined towards teammates as the primary evaluators of performance, following the direct supervisor. In comparison, nations with greater power distances leaned towards upper management as performance evaluators. Interestingly, Spain, which scored the lowest on the individualism scale among the five nations, preferred peers as the evaluators. One might also ponder whether France’s emphasis on soft skills as a key performance requirement is linked to its higher power distance, an element identified by Hofstede.

Lastly, we turn our attention to varying strategies employed to deal with dwindling motivation. Countries like France, Germany, and Italy tend to embrace an “escape strategy”, such as taking a few days off. Conversely, the favored approach in Spain and Denmark involves open conversations with colleagues. No single metric fully captures these disparities. However, a mix of factors such as small-group cohesion (high in Spain), trust levels (high in Denmark), individualism (lowest in Spain), and work ethic (strong connection between perceived success and work success, highest in Italy) might offer more nuanced insights into these behaviors.

Epilogue: the conclusions

In summary, there appears to be uniformity in our respondents’ responses. Perhaps it’s due to the now universally acknowledged paradigms of management shaping the responses, or perhaps our selection of countries – rooted in the traditional Western Europe, with social-capitalist economies – is more uniform than diverse. Evaluations of performance regarding who, how, and on what scale, are uniform elements across the sample. Is the entire world becoming standardized, like Detroit (or, if we’re lucky, Armonk) when it comes to performance assessment?

However, on digging deeper, one uncovers small, yet significant differences: in how the individual perceives their command over their own performance, what that performance depends on, and where the deficiencies are in the evaluation criteria. Strategies for adaptation and strategies for replenishing motivation also vary. At first glance, the divisions fall along cultural lines – think butter and beer cultures versus oil and wine cultures – but they then reveal nuances that are as subtle as they are fascinating.

The scarcity of time emerges as something to focus on in the future. Our respondents express a desire for a more precise evaluation of time—whether regarding its efficient use (in the Nordic countries) or the effort contributed by the worker (in Southern countries). Their responses reflect what economist Paul Dolan theorizes in Happiness by Design: humans are factories that use time as an input, aiming to create happiness as the output (with varying degrees of success).

Interestingly enough, the concept of happiness seems to be the second point of focus, as highlighted by the Danes, who outpace other countries on the happiness scale according to OECD rankings. Our interviewees express interest in future measurements of how accumulated efforts and skills not only foster a positive internal environment but also have a positive external impact. New metrics in this context should operate equally for companies, as entities that organize individual efforts, as well as for the individuals who compose them.

Finally, our subjects point out that the quality of what is created through time and work is a crucial factor that isn’t emphasized enough in evaluations. Whether this quality arises from periods of high motivation (akin to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow”) or from teamwork, in societies shifting toward post-materialism, the importance seems to be shifting more towards the ‘how’ (and certainly the ‘why’) of creation, rather than the quantity.