Performance Management: Changing Behavior That Drives Organizational Effectiveness (part 2)

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The Value of Performance Management to Organizations

by

Charles Lamson

Organizations use Performance Management for many reasons. However, the seven reasons that follow highlight the value of PM to business, industry, and government.

1. PM works.

PM is practical. It is not generalized abstract theory that suggests ways to think about problems; it is a set of specific actions for increasing desired performance and decreasing undesired performance. The PM procedures have been validated against measurable results in a wide variety of applications.

The writers of Performance Management contend that firms using performance management have reported returns on investment ranging from 4:1 to 60:1 in the first year. Successful applications have occurred in a wide range of organizations, from manufacturing and service to software development and research. Job-specific applications range from sales and safety to customer service and vendor performance. In a survey of the research literature, Duncan (1989) reports the average improvement in PM applications is 69 percent.

2. PM produces short-term as well as long-term results.

Mitchell Fein (1981), the creator of a gain-sharing system called Improshare, says that if you go onto the production floor, into the office, or into the lab and do the right things, you will see a performance change in 15 minutes. He is not entirely correct. If you do the right things, you will, in many cases, see the effect immediately! In fact, laboratory research (Foster & Taylor, 1962; Mal, McCall, Newland and Cummins, 1993; Stoddard, Serma & McIlvane, 1994) has shown that animals and humans can learn or change after receiving only one reinforcer!

Most initiatives introduced into organizations make no claim that results can be expected quickly. In fact, their advocates warn that changes should not be expected for a year or more. Few managers can stick to any motivational program or system that takes several years to show results.

The writers of Performance Management go on to say on page 12 that results are produced quickly using the principles of Performance Management. Once mastered, the applications of PM to accelerating organizational performance are so useful that they become habitual and the only way to manage performance. An increasing number of companies using PM are still getting consistent improvement after more than 20 years.

If you try to solve a problem using the procedures and techniques described in this book and do not see changes in performance within the first 10 to 15 data points, you can bet you are doing something wrong, the writers contend. The good thing about this approach is you will know the steps to take to correct the problem. To sustain commitment and enthusiasm, people must see short- and long-term results.

3. PM requires no formal psychological training.

Performance management is supported by thousands of experimental and applied research studies in laboratories, universities, schools, clinics, hospitals, and homes since the early 1950s. This research is based on the pioneering work of the American psychologist, B. F. Skinner.

Dr. Skinner rejected the belief that in order to work effectively with people you must first understand their deep-seated anxieties, feelings, and motives. He took the position that the only way you can know people is by observing how they behave (what they do or say). In his book About Behaviorism, he states, "No matter how defective a behavioral account may be, we must remember that mentalistic explanations explain nothing" (Skinner, 1974, p. 224). It explains nothing to say that a person is lazy or unmotivated or passive-aggressive. These explanations require interpretation of the actions of performers (as though any of us can read the minds of others). Labels such as lazy make the work of improving performance much more complex than many managers see themselves as capable of handling. Applying labels to actions, rather than just describing what is seen or heard, removes objectivity and lessens or destroys the possibility for rapid performance improvement.

Because the PM approach focuses on behavior rather than mental activity, some critics have said it denies thoughts and feelings. Performance Management and the science from which it is derived do not deny thoughts and feelings but consider them just more behavior to be explained. Thoughts and feelings are private behaviors. The methods used to study and understand overt behavior applies to private behavior as well. The difference is that the only person who can use those methods on internal thoughts and feelings is the individual who has them. Until private thoughts are shared through spoken words, they are not available to others. Once any private event is made public, then others can study the overt expression just as with any other behavior.

Performance Management accepts people as they are, not as they were. Because it deals with the here and now, managers do not need to pry into people's private lives or their histories in order to manage them effectively. Managers do not need to know how people were potty trained, that they hate their fathers, or that they are middle children.

Because PM deals with the present, everybody can learn its techniques. In other words, you do not need to be a psychologist, psychiatrist, or a mind reader. As a matter of fact everyone, even if unaware of doing so, makes use of and is influenced by the laws of behavior. Unfortunately, in many cases, people use these laws haphazardly and ineffectively.

The principles of behavior are so simple that infants learn to use them to gain control over their parents in a very short period of time. Notice how quickly people respond when a baby cries or smiles. However, the paradox is that even though the basics are simple, they are not obvious. As a result, we often inadvertently teach people to do what we do not want them to. Consider an example from home. A child asks for candy an hour before dinner and you say no because it will spoil his appetite. He cries loudly for 10 minutes and you give the candy to him to stop the crying. In the short-term, you have stopped the crying (may be seen as a good thing), but in reality, you have increased the likelihood that the child will cry again in the future when he wants something, especially candy. Not only that, but you might have punished his asking for something rather than crying for it. This applies to our own behavior as well. We learn and do things that are sometimes, in the larger picture, not good for us even though we find them rewarding. For example, eating fast food that is high in fat, cholesterol, carbohydrates, salt or sugar is more pleasurable immediately, but eating fast food has long-term detrimental effects on our health. We are all subject to the laws of learning. You can avoid this mistake by learning how such situations occur and how to change them in a productive way.

4. PM is a system for maximizing all kinds of performance.

Because PM is based on knowledge acquired through a scientific study of behavior, the principles are applicable to behavior wherever it occurs. This means that PM applies to people, wherever they work and no matter what they do. The applicability of PM to routine and easily measured jobs is apparent with a basic understanding of the principles. However, it may be easier to see how PM applies to production jobs than to jobs where the main outcome is creativity such as in research or engineering, or to complex organizational problems such as bringing about a cultural change or creating autonomous work groups.

Be assured that if one or more people are involved in any activity, PM can enable them to work consistently at their full potential. These principles work whether the performer is the president of the company or the custodian, whether the target is an R&D group working on telecommunications systems for future generations or a group of textile employees producing a product that the company has been making for 50 years. PM principles have been shown effective in companies as small as 5 employees and as large as 50,000 or more employees.

5. PM creates an enjoyable place in which to work.

Most people agree that if you are doing something you enjoy, you are more likely to perform better than if you do not like what you are doing. Unfortunately some managers have the notion that fun and work do not mix. Indeed in many cases the way people have fun at work is at the expense of the work rather than through it. Everyone knows of employees who engage in off-task behavior such as horseplay, practical jokes, playing computer games, surfing the Internet, or other forms of goofing off.

If, however, the fun comes from doing the work, then management should be preoccupied with how to increase fun rather than how to eliminate it. A manufacturing executive recently said, "Sales and marketing folks know how to have fun at work. In manufacturing, we haven't had much fun; no, we haven't had any fun. We've got to change that." 

Fun and work are so antithetical to some managers that this subject may turn them off. But, as you will see, when you have fun that is directly related to your primary job tasks, you will find that quality, productivity, cost and customer service can all be dramatically improved.

6. PM can be used to enhance relationships at work, at home, and in the community.

While this book focuses on the workplace, the writers use many examples from everyday life because they are easy to relate to, and they highlight the universality of the approach. Indeed, many managers have been convinced of the power of the approach by applying PM to a difficult problem at home. Imagine using PM to increase your child's completion of chores at home or to increase the volunteers' participation at your school fundraiser, all by making the activities more enjoyable for everyone involved!

7. PM is an open system.

PM includes no motivational tricks. You will learn nothing in this book that you would not want everybody in your organization to know. You will learn nothing that is illegal, immoral, or unethical. Because of the stable number of positive reinforcers needed to sustain high levels of performance, high performance organizations teach these principles to everyone so that employees at all levels can facilitate the performance of others as well as their own. Just as managers influence the performance of the people they supervise, employees influence the performance of managers by the same process. Nothing about the principles states that reinforcement only works down the organizational hierarchy. Reinforcement works on behavior. It does not matter who performs the behavior. Therefore, PM works equally well up and across the organization. Performance Management suggests only methods for changing another person's performance that you would enjoy having done for you in the same circumstance. Therefore, there is no need for secret plans to improve performance. On the contrary, every reason exists to be open and honest in all relationships at work. In the final analysis, changing performance with PM will result in everybody getting more of what they want from work.

To be continued...

*SOURCE: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: CHANGING BEHAVIOR THAT DRIVES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS, 4TH ED., 2004, AUBREY C. DANIELS & JAMES E. DANIELS, PGS. 10-17*

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