Review of Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement

Review of Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement

Everyone interested in practical measurement applications needs to read Dean R. Spitzer's book, Transforming performance measurement: Rethinking the way we measure and drive organizational success (New York, AMACOM, 2007). Spitzer describes how measurement, properly understood and implemented, can transform organizational performance by empowering and motivating individuals. Measurement understood in this way moves beyond quick fixes and fads to sustainable processes based on a measurement infrastructure that coordinates decisions and actions uniformly throughout the organization.

Measurement leadership, Spitzer says, is essential. He advocates, and many organizations have instituted, the C-suite (executive) position of Chief Measurement Officer (Chapter 9). This person is responsible for instituting and managing the four keys to transformational performance measurement (Chapters 5-8):

Context sets the tone by presenting the purpose of measurement as either negative (to inspect, control, report, manipulate) or positive (to give feedback, learn, improve).

Focus concentrates attention on what's important, aligning measures with the mission, strategy, and with what needs to be managed, relative to the opportunities, capacities, and skills at hand.

Integration addresses the flow of measured information throughout the organization so that the covariations of different measures can be observed relative to the overall value created.

Interactivity speaks to the inherently social nature of the purposes of measurement, so that it embodies an alignment with the business model, strategy, and operational imperatives.

Spitzer takes a developmental approach to measurement improvement, providing a Measurement Maturity Assessment in Chapter 12, and also speaking to the issues of the "living company" raised by Arie de Geus' classic book of that title. Plainly, the transformative potential of performance measurement is dependent on the maturational complexity of the context in which it is implemented.

Spitzer clearly outlines the ways in which each of the four keys and measurement leadership play into or hinder transformation and maturation. He also provides practical action plans and detailed guidelines, stresses the essential need for an experimental attitude toward evaluating change, speaks directly to the difficulty of measuring intangible assets like partnership, trust, skills, etc., and shows appreciation for the value of qualitative data.

Transforming Performance Measurement is not an academic treatise, though all sources are documented, with the end-notes and bibliography running to 25 pages. It was written for executives, managers, and entrepreneurs who need practical advice expressed in direct, simple terms. Further, the book does not include any awareness of the technical capacities of measurement as these have been realized in numerous commercial applications in high stakes and licensure/certification testing over the last 50 years. This can hardly be counted as a major criticism, since no books of this kind have yet to date been able to incorporate the often highly technical and mathematical presentations of advanced psychometrics.

That said, the sophistication of Spitzer's conceptual framework and recommendations make them remarkably ready to incorporate insights from measurement theory, testing practice, developmental psychology, and the history of science. Doing so will propel the strategies recommended in this book into widespread adoption and will be a catalyst for the emerging re-invention of capitalism. In this coming cultural revolution, intangible forms of capital will be brought to life in common currencies for the exchange of value that perform the same function performed by kilowatts, bushels, barrels, and hours for tangible forms of capital (Fisher, 2009, 2010).

Pretty big claim, you say? Yes, it is. Here's how it's going to work.

First, measurement leadership within organizations that implements policies and procedures that are context-sensitive, focused, integrated, and interactive (i.e., that have Spitzer's keys in hand) will benefit from instruments calibrated to facilitate:

meaningful mapping of substantive, additive amounts of things measured on number lines;
data volume reductions on the order of 80-95% and more, with no loss of information;
organizational and individual learning trajectories defined by hierarchies of calibrated items;
measures that retain their meaning and values across changes in item content;
adapting instruments to people and organizations, instead of vice versa;
estimating the consistency, and the leniency or harshness, of ratings assigned by judges evaluating performance quality, with the ability to remove those effects from the performance measures made;
adjusting measurement precision to the needs of the task at hand, so that time and resources are not wasted in gathering too much or too little data; and
providing the high quality and uniform information needed for networked collective thinking able to keep pace with the demand for innovation.

Second, measurement leadership sensitive to the four keys across organizations, both within and across industries, will find value in:

establishing industry-wide metrological standards defining common metrics for the expression of the primary human, social, and natural capital constructs of interest;
lubricating the flow of human, social, and natural capital in efficient markets broadly defined so as to inform competitive pricing of intangible assets, products, and services; and
new opportunities for determining returns on investments in human, community, and environmental resource management.

Third, living companies need to be able to mature in a manner akin to human development over the lifespan. Theories of hierarchical complexity and developmental stage transitions that inform the rigorous measurement of cognitive and moral transformations (Dawson & Gabrielian, 2003) will increasingly find highly practical applications in organizational contexts.

Leadership of the kind described by Spitzer is needed not just to make measurement contextualized, focused, integrated, and interactive "and so productive at new levels of effectiveness", but also to apply systematically the technical, financial, and social resources needed to realize the rich potentials he describes for the transformation of organizations and empowerment of individuals. Spitzer's program surpasses the usual focus on centralized statistical analyses and reports to demand the organization-wide dissemination of calibrated instruments that measure in common metrics. The flexibility, convenience, and scientific rigor of instruments calibrated to measure in units that really add up fit the bill exactly. Here's to putting tools that work in the hands of those who know what to do with them!

Dawson, T. L., & Gabrielian, S. (2003, June). Developing conceptions of authority and contract across the life-span: Two perspectives. Developmental Review, 23(2), 162-218.

Fisher, W. P., Jr. (2009, November). Invariance and traceability for measures of human, social, and natural capital: Theory and application. Measurement (Elsevier), 42(9), 1278-1287

Fisher, W. P., Jr. (2010). Additional material available at www.livingcapitalmetrics.com.

Fisher W.P. Jr. (2009) Review of Spitzer's Transforming Performance Measurement, Rasch Measurement Transactions, 2009, 23:3, 1220-1221

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Rasch Measurement Transactions & Rasch Measurement research papers - free	An Introduction to the Rasch Model with Examples in R (eRm, etc.), Debelak, Strobl, Zeigenfuse	Rasch Measurement Theory Analysis in R, Wind, Hua	Applying the Rasch Model in Social Sciences Using R, Lamprianou	El modelo métrico de Rasch: Fundamentación, implementación e interpretación de la medida en ciencias sociales (Spanish Edition), Manuel González-Montesinos M.
Rasch Models: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Applications, Fischer & Molenaar	Probabilistic Models for Some Intelligence and Attainment Tests, Georg Rasch	Rasch Models for Measurement, David Andrich	Constructing Measures, Mark Wilson	Best Test Design - free, Wright & Stone Rating Scale Analysis - free, Wright & Masters
Virtual Standard Setting: Setting Cut Scores, Charalambos Kollias	Diseño de Mejores Pruebas - free, Spanish Best Test Design	A Course in Rasch Measurement Theory, Andrich, Marais	Rasch Models in Health, Christensen, Kreiner, Mesba	Multivariate and Mixture Distribution Rasch Models, von Davier, Carstensen
Rasch Books and Publications: Winsteps and Facets
Applying the Rasch Model (Winsteps, Facets) 4th Ed., Bond, Yan, Heene	Advances in Rasch Analyses in the Human Sciences (Winsteps, Facets) 1st Ed., Boone, Staver	Advances in Applications of Rasch Measurement in Science Education, X. Liu & W. J. Boone	Rasch Analysis in the Human Sciences (Winsteps) Boone, Staver, Yale	Appliquer le modèle de Rasch: Défis et pistes de solution (Winsteps) E. Dionne, S. Béland
Introduction to Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets), Thomas Eckes	Rasch Models for Solving Measurement Problems (Facets), George Engelhard, Jr. & Jue Wang	Statistical Analyses for Language Testers (Facets), Rita Green	Invariant Measurement with Raters and Rating Scales: Rasch Models for Rater-Mediated Assessments (Facets), George Engelhard, Jr. & Stefanie Wind	Aplicação do Modelo de Rasch (Português), de Bond, Trevor G., Fox, Christine M
Exploring Rating Scale Functioning for Survey Research (R, Facets), Stefanie Wind	Rasch Measurement: Applications, Khine	Winsteps Tutorials - free Facets Tutorials - free	Many-Facet Rasch Measurement (Facets) - free, J.M. Linacre	Fairness, Justice and Language Assessment (Winsteps, Facets), McNamara, Knoch, Fan

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