page 6
The State of the Profession
by Dale Brethower, PhD
Human performance technology (HPT) is a profession dedicated to improving human performance in systematic and reproducible ways. According to Ann Parkman, 1998–99 ISPI President, human performance technologists share a four-part commitment to a systematic approach to performance improvement, measurable results, people, and lofty ideals. HPT at its best addresses all four commitments, all the time. HPT is about improving the performance of individuals and organizations in ways that benefit individuals and organizations and customers and society.
This article focuses on specific questions: What is the status of HPT in comparison with other professions? What are the major challenges, threats, and opportunities facing the profession and ISPI? What can people do to prepare for the challenges? What is ISPI doing to help? What are we (professionals and ISPI) doing? What should we be doing? How should we be doing it?
page 16
Learning from Top-Performing
Managers
by Paul L. Brown, PhD
Every organization has managers who outperform others based on observable criteria. By identifying these managers and learning more about their behavior and thinking processes, an organization can help others to improve skills In several companies five criteria were used to identify "top-performing," exemplary managers. The criteria were based on achieving results, employee morale, upper-level manager judgments, peer judgments, and customer satisfaction. Selected managers described themselves as "coaches" and "helpers" of others. They demonstrated a wide variety of skills that can be categorized into skill areas related to communication, observation, analysis, change, and helping. Training programs based on this observed set of skills can help new and less-effective managers improve their performance.
page 22
Aligning
Performance: The Ultimate Goal of Our Profession
by Danny G. Langdon
For as long as our profession has existed, we have sought ways to be increasingly valued by those we serve "Performance alignment" as an approach to business will afford us that opportunity. We can bring to executive management, supervisors, and workers a methodology based on sound performance technology principles and practices that lets everyone understand the business, where and how they individually contribute, how to make work continuously better, and how to respond to rapid changes. Performance alignment affords a way for us as a profession to work with our clients, rather than for them. And it will be greatly aided by the widespread use of electronic media.
page 27
Practice
Isn’t Optional: It Can Be a Matter of Life or Death
by Eileen W. Mager
"Practice makes perfect." We all know that practice is essential to successful teaching and learning. It’s basic to our field. Even so, it is often poorly designed and implemented, done as an afterthought, or skipped entirely, resulting in instruction that fails to produce the desired competence in students. This article, by master instructor/coach Eileen Mager, author of the highly respected workshop Mastering the Art of Instructor-Led Training, examines the basic, yet often-overlooked issue of practice:
page 32
Strategies for
Success for Professional Women
by Maria E. Malott, PhD, Judith Favell, PhD, and Beth Sulzer-Azaroff,
PhD
Although data indicate that women have not achieved equity in the workplace, the trend is positive. The role of women is changing, and the authors have confidence that this trend will continue to improve so that women eventually achieve equality. However, parity for women will not happen without intervention. Legislation, networking, recruitment, and mentoring are strategies that have helped narrow the disparities between professional women and men and that hold promise for the continued improvement of women’s status.
In the spirit of mentoring, the authors have shared several strategies that have served them well. Born from performance management and behavior analysis, these deceptively simple guidelines have helped in articulating and achieving goals in both personal and professional lives. Strategies such as these serve as a basis for mentoring and supporting women on their paths to full equality in the workplace.
page 36
Using
a Human Performance System Model to Balance Professional and Personal Life
by Geraldine Markel, PhD
Career success is often threatened by conflicting priorities and consequences outside of work (e.g., child rearing, spousal expectations, caretaking, and community involvement). This article presents a human performance system model to help identify and balance compet- ing values, demands, and consequences. Components of the model are described with steps for professional and personal self-management. The 10 steps are as follows:
page 43
What
the Generations Are Teaching Us... Or How to Look at Performance Differently
by Rosalynne V. Price, PhD
Performance technologists address more issues today than ever before because of the diversity of expectations, needs, and experiences of our multicultural and multigenerational workforce. Considering concepts differently may provide the key to more productive interaction and greater performance improvement. Position and disposition are explored both as an explanation for behavior and as a strategy for improving performance. The amount of learning inherent or possible in a job role and the performer’s response to the learning opportunities are critical elements in performance. The outcomes of effective feedback and the cost of negligible feedback—demotivation, misdirected efforts, and lost intellectual capital—are discussed. Suggestions for jumpstarting a feedback process are given. Finally, an innovative thought process—thinking beyond—is presented as a strategy for generating numerous performance alternatives in our highly competitive economy. Attending to these concepts focuses more attention on people and their relationships as the key to performance improvement.
page 47
Real
Interactivity: Connecting People With People
by Sivasailam Thiagarajan
Structured sharing is a flexible technique that combines several principles of effective learning into training templates that facilitate mutual learning among participants. This practical article describes five structured sharing games and provides detailed instructions for designing and conducting Top Tips, a game for helping participants share practical tips related to different topics around a common task. In this game, participants begin by working individually and progress through working with a partner, in teams, and with the whole group. The article also explores and presents an example of e-mail games. Unlike fancier web-based, real-time games that involve sophisticated graphics and synchronous play in chat rooms, e-mail games are limited to low technology and text messages. Most e-mail games take several days or weeks. Such structured games enable concurrent cocreation of performance interventions.
page 53
Systemic Change
by Donald T. Tosti, PhD
Changing an organization is comparatively easy; creating lasting change is much tougher. Organizations are dynamic systems that will often "swallow" change initiatives with surprising speed, returning the organization to its old ways. This is the reason that many large-scale change efforts fail to provide a return on investment that change sponsors and implementers had hoped for.
This article examines how to create robust, lasting change and present guidelines for ensuring that change is systemic and linked to organizational results; analyzing system interdependencies; the "change potential" of a organization; and communicating change in a way that addresses audience differences among an employee population.
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