Prove It!: How to Create a High-Performance Culture and Measurable Success

Despite the popular notion that we live in the Information Age, most organizations still base most of their decisions on gut instinct rather than on evidence of what’s actually happening and what actually works. Intuition, based on true, hard-won expertise, has a role in organizational decision making, but many decisions, especially the most important decisions, should be rooted in evidence. We cannot know how well we’re performing without evidence of what’s going on and what works. To improve performance, we must measure it. Relatively few organizations can prove that they’re performing well, but they certainly spin great yarns trying to convince us and even themselves. According to Stacey Barr, high-performance organizations can prove their success with facts. In this book, Barr invites organizations to enter the realm of high performance.She not only makes the case for evidence-based leadership, but also explains in concise, clear, and readable prose how to achieve it. This book is short, sweet, and practical. It is also incredibly smart. If you are an information worker, but are frustrated because you work in an organization that doesn’t base its decisions on evidence, despite what it claims, this is the book that you should place in the hands of your organization’s leaders. Without buy-in from your executives, you don’t have a chance.

Highly relevant, easy to read

This book is a practical solutions for anyone leading and demanding performance improvement. I highly recommend it for those of us in leadership positions, especially keen to transform. It addresses what we consider to be the main pitfalls that entangle most public and private sector strategies, namely, the challenges of leadership during strategy design and implementation. The book clearly exposes potential dangers for leaders to avoid and the process through which such dangers can be circumvented while designing and implementing strategies.While there are many books on leadership, what I find atypical to this book is the fact that it talks directly to any leader and provide very practical solution to leadership challenges, in a very simple form of communication, of course typical of Stacey Barr writings! By way of this book, Stacey is revealing leadership secrets that most will, upon reading, agree are easy to embrace for transforming our institutions. Without a doubt, this is a very very practical book for leaders to apply in strategy design and execution!

Every generation sees two, three or more new management fads, each promising to make leadership a simple task. It never is. Stacey Barr passionately believes in “evidence-based management”, which is defined as “. . . making decisions through conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence from multiple sources . . .”. Following this practice will allow managers to make more decisions based on known facts rather than just guessing. Ms. Barr advances eloquent and persuasive arguments in favor of this kind of leadership and in this volume, gives the reader a literal guidebook to implementing evidence-based management following the PuMP method which she claims to have invented in the 1990s. Author Barr makes a very solid case for her methodology. This is one of the few management books that I believe can help management I both large and small organizations.Yet another magic bullet. Every generation sees two, three or more new management fads, each promising to make leadership a simple task. It never is. Stacey Barr passionately believes in “evidence-based management”, which is defined as “. . . making decisions through conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the best available evidence from multiple sources . . .”. Following this practice will allow managers to make more decisions based on known facts rather than just guessing. Ms. Barr advances eloquent and persuasive arguments in favor of this kind of leadership and in this volume, gives the reader a literal guidebook to implementing evidence-based management following the PuMP method which she claims to have invented in the 1990s. Author Barr makes a very solid case for her methodology. This is one of the few management books that I believe can help management I both large and small organizations. Even if you don’t fully buy into evidence-based management, reading this book will still be a worthwhile experience for any business manager.Jerry Even if you don’t fully buy into evidence-based management, reading this book will still be a worthwhile experience for any business manager.Jerry

This is an incredible book. It raised my knowledge and awareness to a whole new level. I don't remember when was the last time I experienced this sensation. How I wish this book to be more widespread to practitioners worldwide. Ms Barr is a genius.

Clean, clear and insightful read on how to measure the less tangible performance improvements in a business. It's given me clarity in my own business and also clarity when talking to our clients about how they will be able to clearly link the impact of EQ Training back to their bottom line results.

a great book to help you rethink your problem-solving and metric choices.

Great book. Stacey Barr delivers a must-read book for anyone in strategy performance. The system of evidence-based leadership it is a pragmatic and very useful approach.

Stacey Barr has often challenged us to ‘measure what matters’… In this book she challenges leaders to ‘make measurement matter.’ Stacey not only makes clear why ‘no excuses’ measurement is essential to organizational success, she provides a practical framework for strengthening shared accountability. Evidence-based leadership bridges the gap between aspiration and achievement, and sustains it over time.

Stacey Barr in Prove It! has provided a blueprint to get performance management working in any organisation.Stacey links culture, systems / processes and leadership methodology to provide an adaptable framework to build a foundation for the evidence based leadership, that sits at the heart of her model for high performing organisations in an age of transparency.It is a practical guide and though stylistically the chunking into threes feels a little forced and reflective of the bite-sizing of ideas prevalent in the current environment - it does make the ideas more manageable and helps to provide context to make the model more actionable. I noticed the power of three more relflecting on the book than when I was reading it.I completed the book in a couple of days and was able to start implementing some of the ideas immediately.A welcome, easy to read and actionable addition to the performance measurement field.

Deceptively simple. Too simple, I think to be taken seriously by those without wisdom. However, I suggest people look at how this book deftly distills usually complex topics into simple straightforward plans. I love the inversion of strategic planning, and the challenge to measure your team. Think you're good, this book will help you prove it. Well, if not now; at least if you follow the plans you will be able to in the future.

parfait