It is no secret that nowadays the market is dominated by employees. This makes it all the more important to identify the current high performers and high potentials and to point out paths of development in the company. Due to the difficult situation in the labor market, many companies are focusing more and more on their current employees. In order to exploit the existing potential and leverage the employee’s potential in the best possible way, above all one thing is needed: knowledge about the current performance and the potential or learning agility. This is where professional potential and performance management can help.

Potential and performance management encompasses all activities and processes aimed at managing performance within the company to ensure that these are used optimally to achieve the company’s goals.

In order to be able to assess the opportunities for professional development, it makes sense to assess not only the performance but also the (learning) potential of the employee. This is also referred to as learning agility.

Potential or learning agility is the ability to adapt to future professional requirements and challenges and to master them successfully. Unlike performance, potential cannot be measured in terms of individual job performance. Therefore, the assessment of potential requires observation points that allow a forecast of learning behavior.

How can potential be measured? Which observation and evaluation criteria are suitable for recognizing potential? Why do many managers confuse performance and potential? 

Particularly in change processes, knowledge of the skills and learning agility of the people involved and affected represents a great added value. Robert A. Sedlák explains more about this in the fifth part of our video series “Systems Theory & Practice”:

In practice, potential and performance are often equated, which can lead to a situation where it is primarily the high performers who are promoted, while the high potentials are neglected. This not only wastes valuable potential, but can also have a negative impact on the motivation and, in the long term, the performance of employees.