RA Performance Check Up

Stealth Performance Improvement – Making Work Visible

2009-07-02T15:48:00.000-07:00

By Roger Addison CPT, EdD, Carol Haig, CPT, Lynn Kearny, CPT

An organization implemented a new employee development process to document employee evaluations, identify high potential workers, improve employee retention, and ensure a pipeline of promotable people for future needs. It included such typical components as:

· Set performance goals and expectations in an initial meeting with each employee

· Provide feedback at regularly scheduled intervals

· Evaluate employees’ performance annually using a formal evaluation form coupled with a discussion

· Identify opportunities for skill building and gaining experience

· Set mutually agreed upon goals with the employee for the next performance period

Unfortunately, the new process failed to meet its goals. Initially, the concerned HR manager investigated the employee development process to see if it contained any design flaws or if managers were not following the process. When nothing indicated a problem with the process and fully 98% of managers were using it, the HR manager was stymied.

Practices

When a process isn’t “broken” it is time to look at how it is actually utilized—the practices employees follow when using the process. In our example, many managers waited until the last possible moment to write up evaluations or plan skill-building opportunities. These practices resulted in shoddy documentation and employees who felt slighted. The managers also emulated the example of their senior leaders and substituted emails for face-to-face evaluations, perpetuating a practice that was detrimental to the process and its goals.

In the world of performance improvement, practices are patterns of behavior that are rarely documented in company materials, but are communicated by established employees to newer people or are learned through observation. They are part of organizational culture and represent what is important to the organization. Practices are how work gets done in organizations.

Making Practices Visible

So if practices exist under the radar, yet are responsible for performance issues that undercut goals and programs, how do we find them? Fortunately, we performance improvement types are skilled at making the invisible visible because we have tools. Some are:

· Culture maps – to break out the defining elements of an organization

· Flowcharts – to show work processes or specific steps in a process

· Swim lanes – to display the interaction of multiple processes within a system

With our observation skills, performance improvement practitioners can enlist one or more of these tools to document what employees do and say—both process and practices—to capture how work is actually accomplished.

Alignment

It is relatively easy to sabotage a well-intentioned process with inappropriate practices. In the failed employee development process we began with there was nothing inherently wrong with the process or its adoption. It was undermined by the practices of the managers using it, in imitation of their superiors, we might add. When an organization’s processes and practices are aligned, performance is likely to improve. When alignment is lacking, there is work to be done.

Learn More

For more about process and practices and other challenges at the Work: Process/Practice Level, please see chapter three in our new book, Performance Architecture – The Art and Science of Improving Organizations.

Roger Addison and Carol Haig write the long-running TrendSpotters column in this publication. Roger leads Addison Consulting. Contact him at rogeraddison@earthlink.net. Roger blogs at http://rachekup.blogspot.com .

Carol leads Carol Haig & Associates and specializes in performance analysis. Contact Carol at carolhaig@earthlink.net or at http://home.mindspring.com/~carolhaig.

Lynn Kearny leads a performance consulting firm that assesses organizational needs and design and develops performance improvement solutions. Contact her at lkearny@sprintmail.com.

Performance Architecture

2009-05-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

Architects and Detectives in the Workplace

SAN FRANCISCO, California (April 27, 2009) – Pfeiffer has just published Performance Architecture – The Art and Science of Improving Organizations, by Roger Addison, Carol Haig, and Lynn Kearny. Available from major booksellers, readers will discover workplace performance improvement tips, tools and techniques from practitioners who get sustainable results. While particularly valuable to performance improvement professionals, savvy business managers interested in maximizing their teams’ results will also want this on their shelves.

Filled with real tools used by real practitioners that really get results, Performance Architecture is a cutting edge resource that unpacks the mysteries of the field of Human Performance Technology (HPT). This business-focused approach to improving the bottom line is made accessible through stories and examples from the authors’ work and that of their colleagues. “As this book and the stories point out, every day there is a chance to make a difference with HPT thinking,” says the late Dr. Geary Rummler, pre-eminent contributor to the field of performance improvement.

The authors identify and demonstrate how performance at three levels (worker: individual/team, work: process/practice, workplace/organization) impacts results in organizations. With an emphasis on simplicity, they show how to scale performance improvement activities and apply them successfully to projects or initiatives of various sizes.

Thoughtfully designed so that each chapter is self-contained, Performance Architecture invites readers to browse as their interests dictate and encourages them to skip around as they find links to other chapters with additional information on a given topic. As an added benefit, chapters conclude with Authors’ Picks, lists of must-have books and periodicals related to the chapter contents. An extensive list of references is also provided at the conclusion of the book.

Performance Architecture – The Art and Science of Improving Organizations, ISBN 978-0-470-19568-0 (pbk.) is available from the International Society for Performance Improvement at www.ispi.org, from www.amazon.com, in both paper and electronic formats, and at most major booksellers.

2009-05-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

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