Rothwell W.J. - Beyond Training and Development[c] The Groundbreaking Classic on Human Performance Enhancement (2004)(2-e)(en)

Problems (or symptoms of problems) present themselves in any of the four performance quadrants.

Planning for future improvements in any of the four performance quadrants.

Conducting strategic planning for the organization.

Conducting planning for departments, divisions, units, or teams.

Benchmarking differences between organizational practices and ‘‘best-in- class’’ or common business practices.

What Is Known About the Causes of Human

Performance Problems?

You may recall from Chapter 2 that I surveyed randomly selected members of the International Society for Performance Improvement in 2004.4 Respondents were presented with a list of possible causes of human performance problems and asked to rate how frequently they encountered those causes and how significant those causes have proved to be. Exhibit 8-2 summarizes the survey results concerning how often the causes were encountered; Exhibit 8-3 summarizes the results about the significance of the causes. Respondents were also asked to indicate what causes of human performance problems they were seeing more often than in the past and why they think those causes are appearing more frequently. Some of their verbatim responses are displayed in Exhibit 8-4.

Consider what these causes mean.

Lack of knowledge is frequently traceable to an employee training need. If people cannot perform because they lack knowledge, they should be trained so that they will have the knowledge they need.

Insufficient opportunity to practice means that performers are not given the opportunity to practice important but infrequently performed work tasks. Hence, they have difficulty remembering what to do when the time comes. Some infrequently performed work duties may be critically important to organizational success or to personal safety. The average worker, for instance, has little need to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a daily basis. But if a worker has a heart attack, it is essential that someone remembers what to do, even though there may have been few opportunities to practice.

Exhibit 8-2. Summary of the frequency of perceived causes of human performance problems.

Mean

Source: William J. Rothwell, Identifying and Solving Human Performance Problems: A Survey (unpublished survey results, The Pennsylvania State University, 2004).

Lack of clear feedback means that performers are not being given feedback on the results of their work activities. They are performing in a vacuum. They take action but hear little about how well the fruits of their labors are contributing to meeting customer needs, helping the organization achieve its goals, or helping the team meet production or service delivery standards.

Lack of rewards for performing suggests a mismatch between performer activities/results and rewards. Although the organization may espouse ‘‘pay for performance,’’ for instance, it remains to be seen whether exceptional performance leads to exceptional pay increases. (Frequently it does not.)

Lack of timely feedback means that the time lag is excessive between worker performance and feedback received about that performance. People cannot improve quickly if they have to wait a long time to hear how they are doing.

Exhibit 8-4. Perceptions of training professionals on increasing causes of human performance problems.

What causes of human performance problems seem to be on the increase in your organization? Why do you believe they are? What are you doing to address those causes? [Note: Numbered items in the left column indicate the order of the causes as indicated by different respondents. Those numbers indicate priorities.]

*Respondents did not accurately provide additional information.

Source: William J. Rothwell, Identifying and Solving Human Performance Problems: A Survey (unpublished survey results, The Pennsylvania State University, 2004).

traced to management deficiencies. Lack of individual responsibility often follows in the wake of downsizing and work restructuring because management does not explicitly reallocate the work.

Lack of worker motivation means that performers know what to do and how to do it but are simply unwilling to do it. They just refuse to perform. Often, this suggests some personal or organizational problem. Perhaps workers refuse to perform because they are upset with management. Perhaps workers refuse to perform because they see no reason to do so. Some organizations address problems of insubordination, sabotage, or deliberate incompetence through employee discipline.

Lack of clear organizational plans means that decision makers have not clarified how the organization should compete in the industry or what goals it should achieve. Crisis management is the norm, and ‘‘shooting from the hip’’ is the usual management approach to problem solving. Workers simply do not know in what direction the organization’s leaders want to head, and so they can scarcely perform in a way consistent with that direction as defined by plans.

Lack of tools means that workers are asked to perform without being given the tools they need to do so. On occasion, tools may be lacking because the organization’s decision makers are unwilling to make the necessary investment in those tools.

Rewards for not performing means that workers are deriving some benefit or reward—financial or nonfinancial—from not performing as desired. Much like a prizefighter who throws a fight for a bribe, a worker who is rewarded for not performing is receiving some benefit from not meeting job performance standards. These benefits may come from coworkers (who urge the worker not to make them look bad by overachieving) or from management (which establishes a work environment in which good performance leads only to more work and no other reward).

Lack of clear organizational policies indicates a failure of management. Performers are not performing properly because no guidelines have been established to indicate what performance is acceptable. If managers do not know what they want, they may get anything.

Fear for job security indicates that performers are paralyzed with fear for their jobs. As a result, they are unwilling to take risks and may devote more time to finding other jobs or protecting their existing jobs than to improving performance, meeting or exceeding customer needs, or engi-

neering leaps in productivity improvement. In the wake of forced layoffs, this issue can be a key cause of human performance problems.

Inadequate tools make performance difficult. This means employees are not given the right tools to do the work. An auto mechanic asked to turn a screw with a hammer (because screwdrivers are not available) is being asked to perform with inadequate tools. While that example may be a somewhat simplistic one, the general principle still applies. On occasion, for instance, an organization’s leaders may ask workers to perform without giving them the appropriate tools to do so. In one example, a university’s leaders asked a professor to launch a new graduate program. However, no new tools or resources were provided to support that program. Since performing the work required having access to the right tools—think of a surgeon asked to perform without a scalpel—the new program was not successful precisely because the right tools were not provided. (In the real case, the tenured professor was fired for complaining.)

Lack of ability (wrong hire) means that a mistake was made during employee selection. An individual was hired, transferred, or promoted into a job that he or she lacked the ability to perform—or to learn. In one organization, an employee was promoted to executive secretary. She was unable to type—and was also unable to learn how to type despite making efforts to do so. That is lack of ability.

Rewards for nonperformance means that workers derive some benefit from not performing at all. This root cause of a performance problem does not mean the same thing as rewards for not performing. It means that nonperformance actually leads to rewards. A worker who makes personal phone calls on company time and makes extra money from doing so is being rewarded for nonperformance. Not only is the company paying for the time the worker spends on business that is not related to company efforts, but the individual may actually make additional money by doing personal business on company time.

Inadequate equipment means that employees are furnished with outdated or obsolete equipment other than tools for doing their work. They may, for instance, be asked to perform their work on outdated personal computers or use a phone system that does not function properly. When poor performance stems from inadequate equipment, worker performance is impeded by management’s unwillingness to provide adequate equipment.

Lack of a sense of who reports to whom suggests that employees do not know to whom they report. Authority relationships are unclear. Consequently, when important decisions must be made and employees feel uncomfortable about taking risks, they may choose to avoid making decisions. The reason: They have nobody authoritative to turn to for help.

Poor ergonomic design means that the relationship between the worker and the technology or equipment necessary to do the work is not optimal. If an employee is asked to sit eight hours a day on a hard chair, that may eventually create back problems—and hinder performance. Poor ergonomic design of chairs, desks, computer equipment, and other machinery may cause human performance problems.

Identifying the Causes of Human Performance Gaps

How can HPE specialists isolate the causes of human performance gaps? What approaches may be used by HPE specialists working as solitary analysts or with teams, committees, task forces, or other groups?

Three approaches are particularly promising for identifying causes of human performance gaps—root cause analysis, the Ishikawa fishbone diagram, and portfolio analysis. Other approaches may also be used; they are reviewed briefly.

Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis traces the causes and effects of accidents or other problems. It tends to be past-oriented and focused only on pinpointing the causes of negative performance gaps.

The basic approach is simple enough. When a problem becomes apparent or an accident has happened, key stakeholders and participants are assembled in a room. They are asked to recount the chronology of events leading up to the problem. As they speak, someone writes the description of each contributing event on a sheet of paper. This confederate sticks the pages to the wall as the relationship of one event to the others becomes clear. This process continues until all possible contributing events have been identified. The result is a wallsized flowchart (storyboard) that shows all events leading up to the problem. Participants are then questioned carefully to pinpoint the one event or sequence of events that is the apparent root cause of the problem or accident. Once the cause is known, corrective action can be taken.

The Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram

The Ishikawa fishbone diagram technique, sometimes called the cause-and-ef- fect diagram method, has been widely used in process improvement. Like root cause analysis, it is usually past-oriented and focused on closing negative performance gaps.

The approach is as simple for root cause analysis. When a problem becomes apparent, an HPE specialist assembles a team of people who are familiar with it. Several hours are set aside for this meeting. Participants are given a diagram like the one in Exhibit 8-5. The basic idea is that all causes can be traced to people, policies/procedures, equipment, and climate. (It is also possible to add other dimensions or to modify the diagram to reflect other categories.) Considering the typical causes of human performance problems identified by the author’s research, HPE specialists may find it appropriate to create a troubleshooting cause-and-effect diagram like the one shown in Exhibit 8-6.

By presenting participants with hints about areas that may be contributing to the cause(s) of a problem, the cause-and-effect-diagram approach provides participants with a valuable troubleshooting tool for discovering the underlying cause(s) of human performance problems.

Portfolio Analysis

Portfolio analysis has been widely used by financial managers to examine the past performance of investments as a basis for making future investment decisions.5 It may therefore be considered a future-oriented approach. Unlike root

Exhibit 8-5. A sample cause-and-effect diagram.

Problem (describe)