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Prove It!: How to Create a High-Performance Culture and Measurable Success
Inspire performance and prove your leadership impact Prove It! is the executive guide to improving organisational performance through the practice of evidence-based leadership. More than ever before, the world is demanding transparency and accountability from organisational leaders, and there is a growing push to hold leaders responsible for the performance of their organisation. Many executives panic at the thought of what transparency might reveal and how they might be held accountable, but others relish the opportunity to showcase their organisation's performance. The difference is in the leadership methodology. The best leaders already know how their organisation is performing, and that it has improved during their tenure – and they can prove it because they practise evidence-based leadership. This book offers a clear blueprint for building on your existing skills and performance management systems to build a truly high performance organisation.
Just three personal leadership habits and three organisation-wide habits can transform your organisation into the powerhouse you know it can be. With a simple methodology and a focus on practical results, this book can help
Set a strategic direction that really does inspire organisational excellence Gain a true picture of your organisation's performance Master the habits that help you lead a high-performance culture Improve your organisation objectively, measurably and quickly If an organisation can only be as good as its leadership, it's reasonable to place the burden of performance responsibility on those who make the decisions. A leader's job is to inspire, motivate and guide, and those who do it well are already raising the bar. Prove It! gives you a practical model for measurable, real-world results, starting today.
Just three personal leadership habits and three organisation-wide habits can transform your organisation into the powerhouse you know it can be. With a simple methodology and a focus on practical results, this book can help
Set a strategic direction that really does inspire organisational excellence Gain a true picture of your organisation's performance Master the habits that help you lead a high-performance culture Improve your organisation objectively, measurably and quickly If an organisation can only be as good as its leadership, it's reasonable to place the burden of performance responsibility on those who make the decisions. A leader's job is to inspire, motivate and guide, and those who do it well are already raising the bar. Prove It! gives you a practical model for measurable, real-world results, starting today.
- GenresBusinessManagement
195 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 18, 2017
39 people are currently reading
106 people want to read
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February 15, 2026
Prove It!: How to Create a High-Performance Culture and Measurable Success is quite a substantial subject to cover in 184 pages. Not surprisingly, this title really only skirts the subject.
It reads, and can't be certain, like a Wiley self-published book. Somewhere in my loft I've a thin paperback book with myself listed amongst the authors, published when I worked for a consultancy. Hurrah! I'm in print, I had yelled, when given a copy. Actually I was given over a dozen copies. I could do with them as I wished, but one thing you couldn't do, was buy the book off Amazon. It was a kind of corporate vanity publishing title. Fortunately I'd got into print a decade before with a short story in a British science fiction magazine, so I wasn't too forlorn!
Stacey Barr's Australian consultancy developed a framework called PuMP (Performance Management Framework) though its title does echo that of a 1980s porno. PuMP gets a section (or gets 'PuMPed'?) on page 49, but otherwise Barr manages to avoid referencing it as best she can.
So how much will Prove It! contribute to developing a High Performance Culture?
That's where we hit the first problem. Unlike almost all business books, Prove It! doesn't have an Introduction section. Consequently, Barr doesn't tell us what the book is intended to provide, and that shortfall becomes apparent as the reader moves on.
Fortunately, on page 9, there's a simple listing of what a High Performance Culture is generally accepted to be. That is;
continuous improvement
measurement of performance
alignment with strategy
consistently reaching for the right targets, without unintended consequences
Ok. That list might be missing a few things. Having worked for quite a few global organisations that include those universally rated as being High Performance Cultures (Toyota being the most notable one) I would regard Trust, that is, trust in leadership and management, as likely the top, most singularly important element of a High Performance Culture.
All High Performance Culture organisations are notable in one other thing; they NEVER, EVER, refer to themselves as having a High Performance Culture. Why? Well, because they risk inviting ridicule if they blunder. And such organisations do, on occasions. In the UK, The John Lewis Partnership, a major and respected retailer, was universally recognised as the shining star of the British retail industry. It was probably the only British retailer who could claim the Crown for being a HP Culture.
In 2019, in a 'crazy 24 hours') John Lewis Partnership trashed that claim. Although its fortunes recovered, t has never reached those lofty heights.
And why should it? Being a High Performance Culture is tough. It's a fantastic environment to work in, but for managers, Board Members and CEO's, CFO's, CSO's, CIO's, GOO etc. it is really, really hard to maintain. Companies that have High Performance Culture are absolutely utterly ruthless with those when it comes to dealing with anything that might impact on the culture. The staff and contractors rarely get blamed for anything; its invariably someone higher-up in the chain who takes the fall.
So establishing a High Performance Culture isn't something I would recommend. Why take the risk? Why not just try to be the best you can be, and accept there will always be failings?
If though, HP Culutre s the target, where to start?
Stacey is absolutely correct n emphasising that it has to start with Leadership. That means 'How the organisation's leaders, inspire high performance, encourage opn communication and transparency, and create a climate for learning, collaboration and success.'
(Page 9)
For me, that is...Trust. The employees have to trust leadership to do the right thing.
There is of course more. Lot's more. Stacey identifies;
Strategic direction and planning
Data analysis, measurement, information & knowledge
and of course,
People and workforce
What isn't detailed much, it how does this impact on the employees themselves?
In my experience, working in a High Performance Culture was typified by a few key distinguishers;
Being regularly asked 'is there anything that can be done to make your job easier/better?' (meaning more efficient, of course).
NEVER rolling-out a process or initiative that caused delay, more labour, wasted resources
NEVER rolling-out an initiative or process without 100% buy-in from the staff, or as near damn-it that could be secured
NEVER (EVER) rolling-out an initiative, process, code with a still-active Defect List with defects rated above 'Low'. This was always an instant firing offence in any High Performance Culture I've worked-in
NEVER (EVER) use the term 'JFDI'. As above, this was always an instant firing offence in any High Performance Culture I've worked-in
So, as can perhaps be seen, High Performance Cultures are different to those that aren't. A lot different.
Inside 184 pages, Stacey Barr doesn't have much opportunity to dig deep into what such an organisation performs like on a day-to-day basis. I can only touch on some of the attributes n my review.
Instead, Stacey concentrates on a still vital element; evidence-based leadership/management.
It sounds simple, but 'trusting your gut' is still a seemingly-favoured leadership strategy employed by organisations worldwide. Where that tendency has been superseded, it's often been replaced by an over-reliance on AI (Prove It! was published long before AI, in 2017) for decision-making. Yet evidence-based leadership remains vital;
Evidence-based leadership is the application of evidence-based management at the most strategic level in an organisation. It has to be practised and prioritised by all of the senior leadership team, including the CEO and board members. If it isn't, then evidence-based management at lower levels won't happen quickly or comprehensively enough for an organisation to fulfil its mission and reach its vision.
(Page 15)
Sounds easy enough?
Well actually, it isn't. Not because of failing in leadership, but simply because, even now, in the third decade of the 21st century, most organisations are simply unable to figure-out how to actually instigate evidence-based decision-making. A lot of the reason is because most organisations don't have anyone, or have very few, staff or senior leaders who have worked in a High Performance Culture (they don't generally have a high turnover of employees). So the 'secret sauce' of how to transform into a HPC isn't easy-to-secure. Yet without adopting evidence-based leadership, the journey won't even begin;
Leaders are responsible for the direction and the culture of an organisation, and the culture of high performance will come only when they both practise and inspire evidence-based management.
Having placed a lot of emphasis on leadership, Prove It! moves onto the tricky subjects of defining strategy and performance targets from within the context of evidence-based leadership. Weasel words are often referenced, highlighting the mealy-mouthed fudged 'mission statements and goals that many organisations define. There are lots of real-world examples, both bad (as in excruciating) and good (as in 'that's sensible').
Performance goals, both those defined at the enterprise level and then cascaded down to individual performance goals, get a thorough examination. As-can-be-expected, if the top-level is wonky, everything below will be wonkier, and invariably, uncoordinated, with individual divisions, departments and teams working against each other to try to achieve unrealistic targets that were never evidence-based in the first place.
Worse, not having an evidence-based mindset, means that organisations always risk 'fixing' a 'thing' with a solution that doesn't impart any advantage or increase in efficiency, because the 'thing' was never rightly understood in the first place. Enacting a wrong solution to 'fix' a poorly-understood problem is perhaps the best example of an anti-High Performance Culture. And there are an awful lot of organisations like that to be found in-the-wild.
There's a lot of great insight in Prove It! but not enough to justify the title How to Create a High-Performance Culture.
It reads, and can't be certain, like a Wiley self-published book. Somewhere in my loft I've a thin paperback book with myself listed amongst the authors, published when I worked for a consultancy. Hurrah! I'm in print, I had yelled, when given a copy. Actually I was given over a dozen copies. I could do with them as I wished, but one thing you couldn't do, was buy the book off Amazon. It was a kind of corporate vanity publishing title. Fortunately I'd got into print a decade before with a short story in a British science fiction magazine, so I wasn't too forlorn!
Stacey Barr's Australian consultancy developed a framework called PuMP (Performance Management Framework) though its title does echo that of a 1980s porno. PuMP gets a section (or gets 'PuMPed'?) on page 49, but otherwise Barr manages to avoid referencing it as best she can.
So how much will Prove It! contribute to developing a High Performance Culture?
That's where we hit the first problem. Unlike almost all business books, Prove It! doesn't have an Introduction section. Consequently, Barr doesn't tell us what the book is intended to provide, and that shortfall becomes apparent as the reader moves on.
Fortunately, on page 9, there's a simple listing of what a High Performance Culture is generally accepted to be. That is;
continuous improvement
measurement of performance
alignment with strategy
consistently reaching for the right targets, without unintended consequences
Ok. That list might be missing a few things. Having worked for quite a few global organisations that include those universally rated as being High Performance Cultures (Toyota being the most notable one) I would regard Trust, that is, trust in leadership and management, as likely the top, most singularly important element of a High Performance Culture.
All High Performance Culture organisations are notable in one other thing; they NEVER, EVER, refer to themselves as having a High Performance Culture. Why? Well, because they risk inviting ridicule if they blunder. And such organisations do, on occasions. In the UK, The John Lewis Partnership, a major and respected retailer, was universally recognised as the shining star of the British retail industry. It was probably the only British retailer who could claim the Crown for being a HP Culture.
In 2019, in a 'crazy 24 hours') John Lewis Partnership trashed that claim. Although its fortunes recovered, t has never reached those lofty heights.
And why should it? Being a High Performance Culture is tough. It's a fantastic environment to work in, but for managers, Board Members and CEO's, CFO's, CSO's, CIO's, GOO etc. it is really, really hard to maintain. Companies that have High Performance Culture are absolutely utterly ruthless with those when it comes to dealing with anything that might impact on the culture. The staff and contractors rarely get blamed for anything; its invariably someone higher-up in the chain who takes the fall.
So establishing a High Performance Culture isn't something I would recommend. Why take the risk? Why not just try to be the best you can be, and accept there will always be failings?
If though, HP Culutre s the target, where to start?
Stacey is absolutely correct n emphasising that it has to start with Leadership. That means 'How the organisation's leaders, inspire high performance, encourage opn communication and transparency, and create a climate for learning, collaboration and success.'
(Page 9)
For me, that is...Trust. The employees have to trust leadership to do the right thing.
There is of course more. Lot's more. Stacey identifies;
Strategic direction and planning
Data analysis, measurement, information & knowledge
and of course,
People and workforce
What isn't detailed much, it how does this impact on the employees themselves?
In my experience, working in a High Performance Culture was typified by a few key distinguishers;
Being regularly asked 'is there anything that can be done to make your job easier/better?' (meaning more efficient, of course).
NEVER rolling-out a process or initiative that caused delay, more labour, wasted resources
NEVER rolling-out an initiative or process without 100% buy-in from the staff, or as near damn-it that could be secured
NEVER (EVER) rolling-out an initiative, process, code with a still-active Defect List with defects rated above 'Low'. This was always an instant firing offence in any High Performance Culture I've worked-in
NEVER (EVER) use the term 'JFDI'. As above, this was always an instant firing offence in any High Performance Culture I've worked-in
So, as can perhaps be seen, High Performance Cultures are different to those that aren't. A lot different.
Inside 184 pages, Stacey Barr doesn't have much opportunity to dig deep into what such an organisation performs like on a day-to-day basis. I can only touch on some of the attributes n my review.
Instead, Stacey concentrates on a still vital element; evidence-based leadership/management.
It sounds simple, but 'trusting your gut' is still a seemingly-favoured leadership strategy employed by organisations worldwide. Where that tendency has been superseded, it's often been replaced by an over-reliance on AI (Prove It! was published long before AI, in 2017) for decision-making. Yet evidence-based leadership remains vital;
Evidence-based leadership is the application of evidence-based management at the most strategic level in an organisation. It has to be practised and prioritised by all of the senior leadership team, including the CEO and board members. If it isn't, then evidence-based management at lower levels won't happen quickly or comprehensively enough for an organisation to fulfil its mission and reach its vision.
(Page 15)
Sounds easy enough?
Well actually, it isn't. Not because of failing in leadership, but simply because, even now, in the third decade of the 21st century, most organisations are simply unable to figure-out how to actually instigate evidence-based decision-making. A lot of the reason is because most organisations don't have anyone, or have very few, staff or senior leaders who have worked in a High Performance Culture (they don't generally have a high turnover of employees). So the 'secret sauce' of how to transform into a HPC isn't easy-to-secure. Yet without adopting evidence-based leadership, the journey won't even begin;
Leaders are responsible for the direction and the culture of an organisation, and the culture of high performance will come only when they both practise and inspire evidence-based management.
Having placed a lot of emphasis on leadership, Prove It! moves onto the tricky subjects of defining strategy and performance targets from within the context of evidence-based leadership. Weasel words are often referenced, highlighting the mealy-mouthed fudged 'mission statements and goals that many organisations define. There are lots of real-world examples, both bad (as in excruciating) and good (as in 'that's sensible').
Performance goals, both those defined at the enterprise level and then cascaded down to individual performance goals, get a thorough examination. As-can-be-expected, if the top-level is wonky, everything below will be wonkier, and invariably, uncoordinated, with individual divisions, departments and teams working against each other to try to achieve unrealistic targets that were never evidence-based in the first place.
Worse, not having an evidence-based mindset, means that organisations always risk 'fixing' a 'thing' with a solution that doesn't impart any advantage or increase in efficiency, because the 'thing' was never rightly understood in the first place. Enacting a wrong solution to 'fix' a poorly-understood problem is perhaps the best example of an anti-High Performance Culture. And there are an awful lot of organisations like that to be found in-the-wild.
There's a lot of great insight in Prove It! but not enough to justify the title How to Create a High-Performance Culture.
February 10, 2018
This book surprised me. It looked like some another one of the light fluff books John Wiley & Sons have taken to publishing. But this book is detailed and thorough. It's a practical manual on using evidence-based thinking in your leadership.
July 31, 2018
Quick read, solid actionable guidance on improving your ability to be an evidence-driven leader.
August 7, 2024
I nerded out over this book! It encompassed so many concepts and ideologies I use for my job but bringing an evidence lens to it all. Would read again and wrote copious notes.
March 31, 2020
I read this for a Leadership and Management course. It was surprisingly not boring and informative, so I'll give it a 4 for that.
May 22, 2017
3.5stars
I quite enjoyed this read. It was well-structured and insightful. To be honest, I could have finished this within a day or two if I had the whole day to enjoy it.
I was quite impressed by how much Ms Barr managed to cram into 200 pages. I managed to pick up some interesting titbits as well which I could apply at work and even at school.
I think this is an essential guidebook for executives who wish to improve organisational performance. As the book rightly states, the world requires executives to be more transparent, this book helps you with the ‘how’.
I agree with another reviewer who initially wondered if this may be a push for her PUMP methodology so I treaded slowly when I started the book. I am pleased to say that it was not the case.
I am going to keep this book close and tap on it when needed.
I quite enjoyed this read. It was well-structured and insightful. To be honest, I could have finished this within a day or two if I had the whole day to enjoy it.
I was quite impressed by how much Ms Barr managed to cram into 200 pages. I managed to pick up some interesting titbits as well which I could apply at work and even at school.
I think this is an essential guidebook for executives who wish to improve organisational performance. As the book rightly states, the world requires executives to be more transparent, this book helps you with the ‘how’.
I agree with another reviewer who initially wondered if this may be a push for her PUMP methodology so I treaded slowly when I started the book. I am pleased to say that it was not the case.
I am going to keep this book close and tap on it when needed.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews