A Problem
Today, most organizations embrace the value of improving the performance of their employees and have made investments in specialists and materials to realize better results. Such performance improvement efforts may take many different approaches within a single organization and are usually conceived and implemented in splendid isolation. Unfortunately, when these initiatives are not integrated into the enterprise’s total performance system, the outcome is general confusion and diluted achievements for the affected workforce and the organization.

Organizations would be well served by an integrative approach that could unite a variety of performance improvement initiatives by showcasing their commonalities and applying them across the three levels of the organization: worker, work, and workplace.

A Proposal
Performance Technology (PT) is such an integrative approach. It is a powerful systematic process that can help integrate performance improvement initiatives at all three organizational levels. PT links business, education, and government goals and strategies to workforce responsibilities for achieving results. PT enables the identification of opportunities and analyzes performance problems. PT helps design systems that enable people to do their best work, producing results that are valuable to the organization. 

PT can support individuals, teams, organizations, and society by cost effectively increasing the value of results they produce. PT methodologies and applications are numerous and varied; however, all are focused on the same fundamental principles, RSVP-Plus.

• Results focused: start with the end in mind
• Systemic: take a systems viewpoint
• Value added: focus on what matters to the enterprise
• Partner: with clients and other performance professionals
• Plus: the added objectivity of solution-independent analyses

The power of PT resides in the performance improvement professionals who use the many models, tools, and techniques to align activities among:

• The workers—individuals and teams
• The work, activities, processes, and operations
• The workplace, organization, and enterprise
• Society

A PT Professional’s Profile
Rather than defining ourselves by the solutions we develop or recommend, performance technology professionals take a comprehensive systems view of performance. We focus on the alignment of an organization’s total performance system. This includes the:

• Environment
• Culture
• Inputs
• Processes
• Outputs
• Feedback
• Consequences
• Stakeholders

Performance technology professionals apply a systematic approach by determining the need or opportunity; defining the requirements; determining the performance gaps, causes, and drivers; designing and developing solutions; implementing and evaluating results for continuous improvement; and embedding PT in the organization to produce sustainable results. 

The PT methodologies and applications we use are numerous and varied. However, all contribute to the accomplishment of one or more of the following:

• Value Identified: Clarify the problem, issue, or opportunity.
• Outcomes Defined: Specify the requirements to close the business gap between existing and desired results, and create value.
• Performance Analyzed: Identify the factors in the performance system that can influence the production of outcomes to meet requirements.
• Solution Selected: Identify and select from a range of possible PT applications that best meet the requirements, given the information about outcomes and performance.
• Solution Designed and Developed: Plan and build solution and materials including decisions about what it will take to cost effectively implement the solution and match culture requirements.
• Solution Deployed: Execute the design to meet requirements.
• Solution Evaluated: Measure results to determine how well the requirements were met and what might be required to further improve results.
• Performance Technology Embedded: Increase the sustainability of performance-based solutions in the enterprise.

The Integrator
The competing performance improvement models, tools, and techniques used today range from organization development to Six Sigma to human resource development. Each approach to improving performance has its own models, language, and tools and is often deployed in just one part of the organization. To add to the confusion and lack of communication, each area may report to a different executive.

Nevertheless, as we have seen, these methodologies have more commonalities than they have differences. And the differences are in the terminology used and perhaps in organizational focus. With our sights clearly fixed on proven sustained results, PT methods, tools, and techniques can be used to integrate performance improvement initiatives across the organization. The power of PT is not in emphasizing the means but rather the ends. The integration of the worker, work, and workplace is the key to improved organizational performance.

This article appeared in the PerformanceXpress e-newsletter of the International Society for Performance Improvement.

Roger M. Addison, CPT, EdD, is an ISPI Senior Director and internationally respected practitioner of performance technology. He is a past president of ISPI, past Chair of the Board and President of IFTDO. Roger has received ISPI’s awards for Service, Organization of the Year, and Outstanding Product. In 1998, he received ISPI’s highest award, Member for Life. Roger has worked and presented in North America, South America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He may be reached at roger@ispi.org.

<<  back to Helpful Links