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Back to the Performance Improvement Journal Home PageJuly, 2004 Editor’s Notes: The Art of Getting Results
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Executive Summaries
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| Validated Practice: The Research Base for Performance Improvement by Brenda Sugrue, PhD, CPT This article examines the extent to which we are making progress toward a solid research base for the practices of performance improvement. We have many good sources of research, case studies, and evaluation data to inform our practice. But there are gaps, particularly in relation to complex decisions that involve simultaneously considering multiple variables, which much of performance improvement practice involves. Person and system variables do not operate in isolation. The relative importance of variables in influencing performance varies from situation to situation. Therefore, we need data from formal research and evaluation studies to identify conditional prescriptions that will make performance improvement results easier to sustain and replicate. Performance Architecture: A Performance Improvement Model by Roger M. Addison, EdD, CPT This article discusses the theoretical foundations of performance improvement, laying out the fundamental principles of human performance technology and describing a framework of performance architecture and the performance landscape. It focuses on the alignment of work, worker, and workplace and the systems viewpoint; explains the essential steps in designing a successful performance improvement intervention; and emphasizes cultural elements as one of the major levers in human performance technology. It also provides a list of practical tips for a systematic performance improvement approach. Models, Systemic Thinking, and Unpredictability in Consulting by Klaus D. Wittkuhn, CPT The use of models and systemic thinking are the central themes of this article. The author looks at models and stresses that they are only representations of reality. He argues the same applies to problem definition; any given definition is in the mind of the person who defines the problem. The article leads from a basic example of linear modeling to more complex forms of linearity and explains the difference for understanding organizations. Organizations are social systems; social systems have many possibilities of inter-relation among influencing factors. The complexity of systems requires a different approach: systemic thinking. This approach has a series of specific characteristics that call for a different way of thinking. The article presents a framework for systemic thinking, shows the consequences of interdependency, and introduces the concept of circularity as opposed to linearity. On Organs and Organizations by Dr. Christian Schmidhauser This article uses a biologists’ approach to look at organizations. Scientists create models to understand and research their topic. Biologists use models of organs, cell environment, cells, and cell parts. Since these models resemble some models from the field of business, they may help in understanding organizations. Transferring concepts from one discipline to another is inspiring and may provoke new ideas. That Thing We Do: Core Competencies of Human Performance Professionals by Raymond F. Robertson, CPT Performance professionals use a specific set of competencies to help clients identify and resolve human performance problems. These competencies are embedded in the human performance technology process and include the skills of problem analysis, solution design and development, change management, and impact evaluation and remediation. Analysis skills are fundamental, covering both environmental and cause analysis, and are supported by strong relationship-building ability. Design skills demand strength in intervention selection and solution development and coordination. Implementation skills are rooted in project management and change resistance abilities. Evaluation skills are rooted in reliable measurement of intermediate and final results across the entire performance analysis and improvement process. Acquiring the core competencies of the performance professional is a question of formal and informal skill acquisition; observation and practice in real-world performance improvement scenarios, and close attention to and improvement of one’s emotional skill set. Responding to Strategic Needs: An Experience With Culture Change Using HPT by Artur Nunes, CPT and Maria João Marques, CPT Partnering with SIEMENS MED over a two-year period, HUMANPERSI implemented human performance technology to transform a vague request for customer service competency training into a fully aligned performance intervention. The evaluation consisted of gathering data using in-depth interviews, focus groups, customer and employee surveys, and cause analysis to assess and identify performance gaps and barriers to improvement. Three key interventions consisting of a feedback system, a people management development plan, and customer service team building were selected using a selection decision-making matrix and the Pareto rule. Results were evaluated using both the feedback system and performance scorecards. The outcome of the study suggested that building a new corporate culture around a model addressing core values, core competencies, key performance criteria, and feedback processes accounts for the success of this change process and its independent ongoing maintenance by the client company. Global Pharmaceuticals: Using HPT to Create Corporate Health by Bruce Milroy In this article, Bruce Milroy, Director of ethos consulting, and Lucy Knight, Global HR Business Partner for Amersham Health PLC, tell the story of using human performance technology to create a unique and powerful business model in the pharmaceuticals industry, a business called Imanet. Over a two-year period, ethos and Amersham worked together with Imanet using a systemic approach to enhance the performance of a cutting edge, multinational and cross-cultural business model. Using the ethos’s culture vortex model and a corporate healthcheck process, the team worked through a series of interventions specifically designed to create alignment and clarity for the client. The result today is a technologically advanced and highly focused scientific business employing some of the world’s leading scientists in medical diagnostics. When Worlds Collide: The Need for Cultural Assessment and Integration by J. Robert Carleton and Alan Stevens Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are once again on the rise globally. Numerous independent studies of 30+ years of M&A activity have clearly documented that between 55% and 77% of completed M&As fail to meet the strategic and fiscal objectives that made up the business case initially justifying the acquisition. A number of independent studies of these failures indicate that well over half of the failures are due to internal culture clash within the newly merged organization. This paper outlines a proven approach for gathering useful data on the cultural aspects of an organizational merger, enabling the development of a plan to diminish, if not completely avoid, culture clash in the post-merger period. This method enables the organization to speed up post-merger alignment and measurably increase the potential for success. With this approach, culture clash can be eliminated as a variable in merger failure. The HPT Salon on Sustainability by Andreas Kuehn The ISPI Europe board decided to test a new format for discussion and exchange at the 2003 ISPI Europe Conference in Paris: The HPT Salon. The basic idea of the HPT Salon was to replay the scenario of a philosophers’ discussion around an open fire during the times of Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, and Kant. Andreas Kuehn, board member, and François Lamotte d’Incamps, who planned and organized this session, tell the story of how it all came about and how the topic of sustainability in human performance technology was examined from different time perspectives and different cultural backgrounds.
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