Rothwell W.J. - Beyond Training and Development[c] The Groundbreaking Classic on Human Performance Enhancement (2004)(2-e)(en)
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION |
Part Two is titled ‘‘Troubleshooting Human Performance Problems and Identifying Performance Improvement Opportunities.’’ Using the new HPE model introduced in Chapter 2, the chapters in this part examine the approaches that HPE professionals may use to answer two key questions about human performance:
1.What is happening?
2.What should be happening?
Chapter 4 examines how HPE professionals analyze present conditions. The chapter opens by explaining what it means to identify what is happening. HPE specialists are also advised to consider what prompted the investigation, how to gather and document facts and perceptions, and how to analyze present conditions.
Chapter 5 explains what it means to assess what should be happening. It offers advice about choosing sources of information and methods to decide just that. A key point of the chapter is that to enhance human performance, train- ers—and their stakeholders—must clearly envision what results they want before they undertake a change effort. Therefore, visioning is critical to identifying what should be happening.
Part Three shows how to discover opportunities for enhancing human performance. Comprising Chapters 6, 7, and 8, the part examines how to clarify gaps in human performance, how to assess their relative importance, how to distinguish symptoms from causes, and how to determine underlying causes of performance gaps.
Chapter 6 describes how to find performance gaps between what is (actual) and what should be (ideal). The chapter defines the meaning of performance gap, explains the possible roles of HPE specialists in identifying those gaps, and offers some approaches to identifying performance gaps.
Chapter 7 explains how HPE specialists, working with others in their organizations, can discover the importance of performance gaps. This chapter defines importance, explains how to assess consequences, provides some guidance about who should determine importance, and offers some ideas about how to assess present importance and forecast future importance.
Chapter 8 treats a critically important but difficult topic: how to detect the underlying cause(s) of human performance gaps. It is important because no HPE strategy can successfully solve a human performance problem or take advantage of a human performance enhancement opportunity unless the underlying cause
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of the performance gap has been determined. However, it is tricky because performance gaps are usually evidenced more by symptoms (visible consequences of a problem) than by underlying root causes (the reason for the gap’s existence). This chapter defines cause, explains how to distinguish a cause from a symptom, suggests who should determine the cause(s) of human performance gaps, provides the results of my research on what is known about the causes of human performance problems, offers advice about when the cause of a performance gap should be identified, summarizes some approaches to identifying the underlying causes of performance gaps, and explains how—and why—the causes of performance gaps may change over time.
Part Four is entitled ‘‘Selecting and Implementing HPE Strategies: Intervening for Change.’’ It comprises Chapters 9 through 13. The chapters in this part explain how to choose and use HPE strategies directed at the four performance environments described earlier in the book. Those environments are:
1.The organizational environment (the world outside the organization)
2.The work environment (the world inside the organization)
3.The work (how results are achieved)
4.The worker (the individuals doing the work and achieving the results)
Chapter 9 provides a framework for other chapters in Part Four. It offers rules of thumb for selecting one—or several—HPE strategies to solve human performance problems or to seize human performance enhancement opportunities. The chapter defines HPE strategy, articulates assumptions guiding the selection of HPE strategy, summarizes a range of possible HPE strategies, and presents the results of my research on how often different HPE strategies are used.
Chapter 10 takes up where Chapter 9 leaves off. It helps HPE specialists identify the most important external stakeholders of their organizations. The logic of starting HPE by looking outside the organization is simply that, if quality is defined by the customer, then human performance must be defined by the customer as well. The chapter also engages readers in analyzing how well the organization is interacting with external stakeholders, identifying what HPE strategies can improve the organization’s interactions with external stakeholders, and considering how HPE strategies should be planned and carried out.
Chapter 11 examines HPE strategies geared to improving the work environ- ment—that is, the world inside the organization. Although many such HPE strategies are possible, the chapter emphasizes only two:
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PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION |
1.Enhancing organizational policies and procedures
2.Enhancing organizational design
Chapter 12 examines HPE strategies geared to improving the work. Here, too, many such HPE strategies are possible. However, I have chosen to direct attention to such well-known and important HPE strategies as:
Redesigning jobs or work tasks
Improving information flow about work-related issues
Improving feedback to performers
Improving on-the-job and off-the-job training
Using structured practice
Improving equipment and tools
Using job or performance aids
Improving reward systems
Each can be used alone or in combination with other HPE strategies to improve human performance or address underlying cause(s) of human performance problems stemming from the work.
Chapter 13 examines HPE strategies geared to workers—that is, groups or individuals who do the work. Although a conceptual overlap exists between Chapters 12 and 13 in that some methods treated in Chapter 12 can also enhance individual performance, I have chosen to concentrate on three HPE strategies in Chapter 13:
1.Identifying and building worker competencies
2.Improving employee selection methods
3.Applying progressive discipline
Part 5 consists of only one chapter. Chapter 14 reviews approaches to evaluating HPE strategies. The chapter defines evaluation, explains how HPE strategy evaluation methods resemble training evaluation methods, explains how HPE strategy evaluation methods differ from training evaluation methods, and offers three step-by-step models to guide approaches to HPE strategy evaluation before, during, and after HPE implementation.
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What’s New in the Second Edition?
While the first edition of this book was widely read and many issues covered in it are still quite applicable to those who call themselves (variously) training and development professionals, trainers, performance consultants, HR practitioners, and other names, this edition differs from the first edition in several key ways. Among them:
The survey of human performance enhancement provided in the first edition has been updated and new results added.
References have been updated and, more specifically, new and important references have been added.
Additionally, this edition answers these questions:
What organizational conditions are essential for the successful application of performance enhancement?
What should be the competencies of the clients of human performance enhancement?
How should human performance improvement/enhancement interventions be selected?
What interventions have emerged as most important or more commonly used in recent years, and why are they used?
What interventions are most effective, and what key success factors exist for performance interventions?
What software exists to support the work of those who work in HPE?
What are some new thoughts on how interventions should be evaluated?
What cross-cultural issues should be considered when selecting and implementing performance enhancement interventions?
What is the future of human performance enhancement?
In summation, this book is an action manual for reinventing the training department by placing a new emphasis on the myriad ways by which human performance may be enhanced in organizational settings. While useful for trainers, the ideas presented in this book may also be applied by others such as managers, HR specialists, and even employees.
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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Writing a book can be an ordeal. During the process an author makes new discoveries, reviews (and often discards) old assumptions, and undergoes many bouts of depression about the number of excellent ideas that have to be left out of a book to keep its length manageable. Completing the process also requires an author to engage in lively debate with many people.
This section is my opportunity to thank those who engaged me in that lively debate and helped me survive the ordeal. I would therefore like to extend my sincere appreciation to my talented graduate research assistants, Wei (Aleisha) Wang and Tiffani Payne, for scouting out for me obscure references on human performance enhancement (and related topics) and helping me crunch numbers from surveys.
Everyone I have talked to has provided me with valuable advice, information, and encouragement on the rough draft of the book. Though I must shoulder ultimate responsibility for the quality of the final product, they helped me survive the ordeal of writing this book.
Last, I would like to express my appreciation to my acquisitions editor Jacqueline Flynn, at AMACOM, who patiently accepted my pleas for extra time despite her eagerness to have the manuscript and graciously offered ideas to improve the book.
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P A R T O N E
T H E N E E D T O M O V E
B E Y O N D T R A I N I N G
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C H A P T E R |
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W H Y T R A I N I N G I S N O T E N O U G H
How does your organization manage employee training? Read the following vignettes and, on a separate sheet of paper, record how your organization would solve the problem presented in each. If you can offer an effective solution to all the vignettes, then your company may already be effectively managing training; otherwise, it may have an urgent need to take a fresh look at reinventing training practices to emphasize human performance enhancement (HPE).
Introductory Vignettes
1.A chief executive officer (CEO) calls the corporate director of training and development. Here is a brief transcript of the phone conversation: CEO: We have just hired consulting firm X to help us install a Customer Service Improvement effort in the company. We need to offer training as a first step to make everyone aware of the importance of high-quality customer service. Can you make that happen?
Training Director: Yes. How many people do we want to train, and how quickly do they need to be trained?
CEO: We need everybody in the organization trained as soon as possible.
Training Director: No problem.
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