The term "performance culture" is applied to two fundamentally incompatible management systems.

One is rooted in evidence and includes psychological safety and trust; the other is management by fear.

Management by fear does not support performance; it degrades it.

Performance culture sounds good. Who would argue with “performance culture”?

Well…let's check how it is defined.

In the minds of many executives, it means higher loads, “ruthless” focus on results, gag orders, and getting rid of “B-players.”1 This is framed as the rejection of the “soft” management, even if “softness” never went beyond the performative empathy-washing.

Yet even Bain Consulting, which can hardly be accused of softness, defined performance culture as one where people are empowered, given the needed resources, and are safe to learn and make mistakes.2

Which is the “real” performance culture? The ruthless and silencing one, or the empowering one?

Both claim the label. Only one can back it up with research evidence.

After all, Enron claimed to have a performance culture. Then it turned out that engineering cutthroat competition among employees produces "creative accounting" banking on phantom profits.3 Wells Fargo claimed to have a performance culture. Then it turned out that combining impossible targets with the constant threat of termination produces fraudulent accounts opened without customers'........

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