Fundamentals of Performance Improvement

Optimizing Results through People, Process, and Organizations

Darlene Van Tiem, James L. Moseley, Joan C. Dessinger

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118235744
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Fundamentals of Performance Improvement, 3rd Edition

Fundamentals of Performance Improvement is a substantially new version of the down-to-earth, how-to guide designed to help business leaders, practitioners, and students understand the science and art of performance technology and successfully implement organizational and societal change. Using the Performance Improvement / Human Performance Technology (HPT) model, the expert authors explain step-by-step how to spot performance indicators, analyze problems, identify underlying causes, describe desired results, and create workable solutions.

"It does not matter what function you align yourself to in your organization, this book allows you to tap into the secrets that drive organizational success. Several books work to define what is performance improvement and performance technology. This one also provides insights into the Why? And How?"
—CEDRIC T. COCO, CPT, SVP, Learning and Organizational Effectiveness, Lowe's Companies

"Fundamentals of Performance Improvement is full of practical models and tools for improving the world by partnering with customers, clients, constituents, and colleagues. It provides a path forward for successful transformation and performance improvement at personal, group and collective levels. It is a must read for leaders and consultants seeking to advance opportunities in new and emerging situations."
—DIANA WHITNEY, PhD, president, Corporation for Positive Change

"If you have an interest in performance improvement, this is simply the best available book on the topic. It addresses the science and craft as well as the intricacies of how to improve workplace performance. Van Tiem, Moseley, and Dessinger have incorporated into this work the best available research on the Certified Performance Technology (CPT) standards and process."
—JAMES A. PERSHING, Ph.D., CPT, professor emeritus, Workplace Learning and Performance Improvement, Indiana University

"Its international flavor, with practitioner comments and examples drawn from across the world, enhances its appeal as more and more professionals operate in an increasingly global context."
—DALJIT SINGH, Asia Pacific Director of Talent Management, Baker & McKenzie, Sydney, Australia

SECTION 1

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT AND THE PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT/HPT MODEL

Copyright © American Greetings Corporation. Used with permission.

Chapter 1

Overview of Performance Improvement

“America is a nation where creative approaches yield real solutions to our problems. . . . It’s clear to me that performance technology is just such an approach.”

President George Bush1

Society, work, and the workplace have changed dramatically. As the Industrial Era emerged from agriculture and craft orientation, people began working in large groups and living in large communities. Gone were the isolation and independence of farming or as craftspersons in small towns supported by and supporting agriculture. Industry brought large-scale machinery operated by large workforces. The industrial workplace emphasized work design and quality.

With the Information Era, the workplace began to focus on information and the people who add value to information. Just as industrial machinery was automated to improve its functionality, much has been done to automate information through software, hardware, and internet innovation. The Information Era brought increasing recognition of the value of people as integrators and users of information. Leaders of progressive organizations successfully envision and promote people and people issues. Although there is considerable emphasis on information, there is an ongoing need for manufacturing, medicine, service, military, government, and many other organizations. There remains more need to coordinate and collaborate because there is great interdependence.

Performance Improvement: Precursors

Performance improvement as a field of study has gradually evolved as the world has evolved. Craftsmanship established standards; work design improved efficiency; quality focused on customer expectations; the ever-widening distribution of information enabled a global economy, and the people became more valuable to their organizations.

Craftsmen and Artisans

Through much of recent history, agriculture provided sufficient productivity to support artisans and craftspeople and to request their services. Architectural masterpieces, such as religious edifices, jewelry, household goods, and so forth were made according to expectations and often based on scientific standards.

Work Design

Work, work processes, and job design took on great importance as people began working together in factories. Efficiency was the goal. The ability to coordinate and control hundreds of employees in one location led to product dominance and business success. Frederick Taylor was a leader in scientific management, also known as Taylorism, based on time and motion studies.2 For example, many small companies could build automobiles, but only Henry Ford, with his assembly line and upgraded labor pay scale, could create vehicles that were affordable by the common man. Maximizing the capability of a larger workforce was a significant competitive advantage.

Quality

As time went on, the ability to coordinate and control workers was not enough. Competitive advantage now moved to the quality of the product. Value was measured by the ability to provide customers with timely, innovative, defect-free, and cost reasonable merchandise. The quality movement flourished and helped unify work practices globally. An American, W. Edwards Deming, over thirty years, helped Japan improve their product quality, spearheading efforts to produce items with little variation and extraordinary reliability.3

Information

Optimizing information became the next competitive edge. Data became readily available for analysis, problem solving, and decision making. Software was written to integrate work, thereby increasing accuracy, reducing time and cost, and extending predictions and planning. For example, Thomas Watson at IBM envisioned the value of computers and helped incorporate them universally in organizations. Bill Gates enabled information to be readily available and usable throughout the world.4

Peter Drucker discussed the origin of the information age:

“Whether this transformation began with the emergence of the first non-Western country, Japan, as a great economic power or with the first computer—that is, with information—is moot. My own candidate would be the GI Bill of Rights, which gave every American soldier returning from World War II the money to attend a university, something that would have made absolutely no sense only thirty years earlier at the end of World War I. The GI Bill of Rights and the enthusiastic response to it on the part of America’s veterans signaled the shift to a knowledge society.”5

People

Over the years, truly great organizations have realized the value of people and worked to maximize their potential.6 All the efficient machinery operation, quality control, and information access in the world does not make an organization outstanding. People, with their skills, knowledge, motivation, values, and dreams, make organizations thrive and prosper. For instance, Jack Welsh, CEO of GE, harnessed the value of people to make a world renowned, competitive, innovative, energized organization.7

Just as work design, quality, and information require continuous commitment to achieving maximum competitiveness, people-related performance issues need unwavering attention as well. Thomas Gilbert, the founder of performance technology,8 described people’s behavior in terms of “worthy” or worthwhile performance. In his Behavior Engineering Model, which focused on environmental support and employees’ repertory of behavior,9 he established the framework for performance improvement outcomes and performance technology.

Performance Improvement: Definition and Scope

Performance improvement (PI), also known as performance technology (PT), human performance technology (HPT), or human performance improvement (HPI), is the science and art of improving people, process, performance, organizations, and ultimately society. Sanders and Ruggles10 use the analogy of alphabet soup and make the case that there are not too many letters in the performance improvement soup. Each letter, expert contributor, or discipline adds flavor or nutritional value to the performance improvement soup pot. (See Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 later in this chapter.)

TABLE 1.1. Theoretical Foundations of Performance Improvement

Source: Adapted from Sanders and Ruggles, 2000, pp, 27–36. Used with permission.

Discipline	Focus	Contribution
Behaviorism	Predicting behavior	Small steps of instruction and feedback
		Learn to manipulate and control the environment by the individual’s responses to it
Diagnostic and Analytical Systems	Data as basis for understanding behavior	Practitioners use comprehensive analytical tools
		Diagnosis is based on gap (difference between desired and actual situation)
		Causes of situation are defined before intervention is selected and implemented
Instructional Systems Design and Organizational Learning	ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation) model, forerunner of the Performance Improvement/HPT Model	Developed in 1940s and 1950s, responding to need to train thousands of military personnel during World War II
		Various instructional methods were found to be valuable, such as role play, video, case study, and lecture
Organization Design (OD) and Change Management	Changing performance at organizational and individual levels	OD interventions improve culture, group dynamics, and structure of organization
		Change management helps individuals and groups adapt to change through timely information, appropriate resourc...