The Three Laws of Performance

by Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan

Book Overview

A proven system for rallying all of an organizations' employees around a new vision and ideas for making the vision stick

When something at work isn't going smoothly, managers struggle with what part of the problem to tackle first. Do they start with cost reduction? Or should they go for process improvements first? The authors--who have helped hundreds of companies and individuals change and improve--say spend time and money adjusting the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0470195592
• ISBN13: 9780470195598
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A truly remarkable book

One of the things I've always wondered about Management Consultants is "What do they actually do?" Or, to put it another way, "How much difference can they really make, or is it all just a bunch of hot air?" This book certainly gives some dramatic real-life examples of radical shifts that the authors caused in companies that they advised. Shifts that went way beyond any normal conception of what we would expect to be possible. Right in the first chapter they detail a turn-round at the Lonmin mining company in South Africa, where a disastrous safety record and inter-racial tension stalemated all previous attempts to improve productivity. The case of Lonmin was an illustration of the "First Law" - that How people perform correlates to how the situation occurs to them. This is profound. It rarely crosses our minds that what we perceive is merely our own interpretation of a situation - we take it for granted that we directly perceive the reality itself. Other people's actions often seem to us to make no sense at all - yet they will be perfectly logical to that person, given the interpretation they have: on that occurs to them as reality! The second and third laws deal with ways that this perception of situations arise, and what can be done to re-cast them both for ourselves and for others. Although primarily written from the perspective of resolving conflicts and challenges in a workplace contexts, every insight in the book applies just as readily to our family and inter-personal situations.

A 21st century version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave

In his comments in the "Editor's Note" section that precedes the Introduction, Warren Bennis acknowledges that he was fascinated by Zaffron and Logan's "gutsy aspiration to integrate an interdisciplinary slew of disciplines as disparate as brain science, linguistics, organizational theory, and complex adaptive systems with a few fundamental laws of human and organization behavior that could lead to palpable and profound change in both domains." Frankly, I had no idea what to expect when I began to read this book but soon realized that Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan would be focusing on an especially serious challenge that most people face every day: How to develop the ability to "rewrite the future"? That is, "rewrite what people [begin italics] know [end italics] will happen." In this brilliant book, they explain how Three Laws of Performance can help their reader to complete a natural shift "from disengaged to proactive, from resigned to inspired, from frustrated to innovative." Part I (Chapters 1-3) "takes these laws one at a time, and shows how to apply them" and answers the question "Why do people do what they do?; then Part II (Chapters 4 and 5) "looks at leadership in light of the Three Laws" and answers the question "What are the interrelationships between language and occurrence?"; and finally, Part 3 (Chapters 6-8), "is about the personal face of leadership" and answers the question "How does future-based language transform how situations occur to people?" Note: "What exactly does [the word] occur mean? We mean something beyond perception and descriptive experience. We mean the reality that arises within and from your perspective on the situation. In fact, your perspective is itself part of the way in which the world occurs to you. `How a situation occurs' includes your view of the past (why things are the way they are) and the future (where all this is going"). Indeed, they assert, "None of us sees how things are. We see how things occur to us." Throughout their narrative, Zaffron and Logan urge their reader to keep in mind that the Three Laws of Performance really are laws, not rules, tips, stages, or steps. Each of the three "distinguishes the moving parts at play behind an observable phenomenon. A law is invariable. Whether you believe in gravity or not doesn't lessen its effect on you." Nor does any of the three lessen its effect on performance. The challenge is to understand them, to understand how there are interactions and even interdependences between and among them, and most important of all, how to apply them effectively, productively, and consistently. Bennis and the others have their own reasons for thinking so highly of this book. Here are two of mine. First, Zaffron and Logan's ideas about "rewriting the future" may at first seem (as Bennis' suggests) "astonishing" but not after understanding exactly what they mean by it. Specifically, to "rewrite" is to overcome the quite normal tendencies of not seeing and hearing wh

Excellent and Timely Guide for Leaders

In an age where conversations have become a commodity, a good book on the relationship between organizational performance and language is a must-read; and The Three Laws of Performance doesn't disappoint. I was interested to see how the authors would handle the issue of generative language, language that's used to create rather than just describe. I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the authors do a great job of navigating the delicate balance between the extremes (no appreciation for the power of future-based language on the one hand and a complete disregard for real world limitations on the other); they provided a clear road map along with engaging cases studies that help to guide the reader along a path that I believe will help leaders for years to come take their organizations to new levels of effectiveness and performance. Ironically, the only thing I would suggest changing about this book is the language. The title should have been simply The Three Laws, or possibly The Three Laws of Leadership. Additionally, the 3 main laws could have been stated in a way that was easier for the reader to remember. Twice now, I've tried to describe the 3 laws to a friend and I wasn't able to articulate the laws effortlessly. I had to work at remembering the precise language. For those in the same boat, here's the shorter version that I'm now using when I give a quick description of the book to friends. 1) Performance is related to perception 2) Perception is rooted in language 3) Vision casting changes perception (Or, Generative language changes perception) Rather than perception, the authors speak of the way things occur to the members of an organization, which works great in the book, but not as great in an elevator. I imagine that they strayed from the term perception in order to steer clear of the obvious clichés related to the term. For example, "Perception is 9/10th of reality" can be used to mean too many things. With that said, I don't want to diminish the power of this book. I found that it was one of the few books that took me a couple of nights to read because I didn't want to miss anything. It may also be one of the few books I actually read again. The overall structure of the book worked well for me: a section describing the 3 laws, a section on leadership and the 3 laws, and then, finally, a section on personal application. The first section includes 3 chapters which introduce the 3 laws by taking the reader through a mesmerizing weave of case studies that help to put real world handles on the ideas proposed by the Three Laws. The second section focuses on the application of these 3 laws in the context of leadership. I loved the 3 corollaries to the 3 laws written for leaders and found the concept of listening for the future of your organization to be compelling in light of the supporting case studies. The second chapter in this middle section describes the Self-lead organization. This is a loaded term that is

A Perfect Book At the Perfect Time

The Three Laws of Performance could not come at a better time. Unless you have been living underground cut off from communication with the outside world, you must know that the world is facing unprecedented challenges. From the economy to the environment to global terrorism, the future doesn't look pretty. In fact it looks down right depressing. While the authors of the book may not have intended it, the ideas in this book could very well be the answer to the question "How do we get ourselves out of this mess?" The US President has recruited some of the best minds in America to his administration to fix the US banking system, jump start the economy and stop climate change. We all may be praying that they are successful, but in each of our hearts we know that we are going to need to each embrace the required change if it is to be successful. The personal and political habits that got us where we are now will not allow us to get where we need to go. We don't need change, we need re-invention. So what about this book? I, like many people want to do something about the issues that we are facing. A friend of mine gave me a copy of the book to read saying that I would like it especially because of the community work that I do. I was doubtful. I found the title to be boring and I am generally not interested in business books. She said that I would like it because I have to deal with a lot of resignation, which is true. Being an environmental advocate can feel like talking to stones. I began reading it and got immediately intrigued by the First Law of Performance: "How people perform correlates to the way the world occurs to them" I would have never said it that way, but it made perfect sense to me. People don't recycle because it occurs for them like it doesn't matter. People will drive out of their way to save 10 cents on a gallon of gas or to use a 2 for 1 coupon but they won't recycle. How we act in the face of climate change or the economy really does make a difference but as my friend says, we are resigned. This is also true even in organizations where people get paid to do a job. The authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan contend that it is people's individual views and the language they use to describe their situations that determine the actions they take. According to the book, the way people both view and speak about situations is influenced almost exclusively by the past. This in turn limits people's ability to adapt and work cooperatively together as past successes and failures literally limit their view of what is possible. This is true for both individual people as well as the organizations they are a part of. Just think of the auto industry or a losing sports team. In most organizations, individual people feel that they have little or no say in what happens. As a result there is little or no real communication between the leaders and those they lead. The Three Laws asserts and illustrates