Performance?

KPIs are currently flooding the working levels within companies. They follow a digital control logic and treat employees as digitally controllable units. They follow a machine/robot logic.

It is all about performance and improving performance. The collection of various data serves to provide transparency and a desired, more objective view of the performance situation. At the same time, however, they are used as control instruments. In doing so, they aim for a concept of control based on machine logic: a clearly defined input produces a clearly defined output. This fails to recognise the human aspect of the employee. Performance is fundamentally linked to emotional and sensory factors.

Drawing on the ideas of Friedrich Schiller and Wilhelm von Humboldt, and following the ideal of a well-rounded, sensory and free human being, the digital control approach will not achieve its goals of improving performance.

The concrete example of the waning and disappearance of Kaizen-oriented movements clearly demonstrates that without freedom, emotion and flexibility, we cannot realise people’s full potential.