How quickly things change.... I think Ronald Wright describes this phenomenon the best. In his book, a Short History of Progress, he talks about how technology has advanced the material progress of mankind. What I find fascinating is the pace of this change. Growing up I remember my family having the same kitchen oven for 16 years, in our household...

How many times have we seen this before? No names of course.The irony of this cartoon is that the "employee" may in fact be correct. Granted that a chart with this kind of dramatic drop-off is not typically illustrative of positive performance, we all too often pay these one-dimensional measurements too much attention.

Cross-posted from http://www.jamehealy.com/performance_is_not_just_results