PerformanceXpress Jan. 02 for print

For certain professions, job descriptions are lifeless, boring, mechanical, and soul-less. Educators, social workers, government employees, human resources personnel, clergy, advertising professionals, and so on—fields with a strong service, artistic, salvationist, and entrepreneurial mission—find the standard job description unreflective of what they really do. Indeed, unless there is a place whereby who they are can be clearly linked to what they do, the profile leaves out their commitment or passion; and without that it is more of a sieve than a container, and omits more than it includes.

And yet there is a need for some uniformity in most organizations. In addition, job descriptions establish not just what is to be done but create the basis for determining salary, promotion criteria, and evaluation of performance. Then, too, it is critical to have it in hand when the position is advertised and prospective employees want to know what the job involves. Clearly, then, we cannot junk it entirely without finding a replacement that is acceptable to those professions while also satisfying the different needs for having such descriptions companywide.

The opportunity to work in a consultant and training relationship with a few of the groups above led to discovering a more congenial approach to, and form of, a job description. Those involved called this concept “self-story” and thus possessed strong autobiographical and even confessional qualities, which these professionals believed to be critical in describing their work and their motives. But lest one conclude that this approach generated a meandering and even self-indulgent long tale without focus or purpose, such was not the case. In fact, five versions of the self-story were identified and used to generate a different but no less respectable alternative to the traditional job description. Those versions are as follows:

Impressive? Perhaps, the process of self-story should be applied experimentally to all professions and employees?

Contribute, Network, Learn!
by Barbara Gough, 2002 Conference Program Chair

In a time of economic chaos and political unrest, why, you ask, should you plan on attending ISPI’s 2002 International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo? Of course, one of the most important reasons is to learn from, network with, and meet other professionals in your field. Another reason is to support ISPI—your professional organization. You’ve looked to ISPI for career-building opportunities, professional direction, and help plotting the course for your own pathway to performance. Similarly, ISPI looks to our members to disseminate ideas, initiate debate, and stimulate discussion. In short, ISPI needs you to contribute to your field! Members are the lifeblood of this professional Society and your participation in this year’s International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo will speak highly of your commitment to improving your own and your organization’s performance! Come to Dallas, y’all! Here are just a few highlights to let you know what a special conference is in store for you April 21-25, 2002:

Educational Conference Sessions: Choose the areas you need to concentrate on for your professional growth. Sessions are grouped in tracks with the following focus:
- Competencies for HPT: How do I grow as a practitioner and as an HPT advocate?
- Analysis of Needs, Problems or Opportunities: What’s happening? Where? Why?
- Interventions–Organization and Strategy: How must the organization change?
- Interventions–Process or Tool: What are supporting processes and tools?
- Interventions–Instructional: What must people know and do differently?
- Evaluation and Continuous Improvement: How did it work?
- Frontiers of HPT: What’s next? Where are we going?
- Decoding Value in Today’s Workplace: Bonus! Two conferences for the price of one! Selected sessions from ISPI’s Fall Specialized conference will be presented at the Dallas Conference.

For complete session information, visit www.ispi.org.

Talk-About’s: Come and join the “Talk-About” groups. This special forum encourages attendees to get together and discuss topics of mutual interest. Anyone can “host” a talk-about session. Just pick a topic, a time, and other interested individuals will join you for lively information sharing.

Introduction to HPT & Overview of the Conference: For newcomers, there’s the ever-popular Introduction to HPT and Overview of the conference session. This is a chance to meet and hear from key people in the field of HPT. Let ISPI experts explain HPT and help you make the most of your conference experience.

Special Welcome Event: The conference committee will host a special event for all attendees to welcome them to the conference and to Dallas. Arrive in time for the Opening Reception on Monday, April 22 from 6:30-8:30 pm in the Exhibit Hall. Refreshments will be served.

Masters Series: The ever-popular Masters Series will feature presenters who have made significant contributions to the field of performance improvement.

Presidential Showcase: ISPI is working with leaders in the transportation industry to offer you a special session, “HPT in the Aviation Industry.” We hope to recruit representatives from major airlines and airports who will describe how HPT is being applied to their industry and operations.

Special presentation by Elliott Masie: ISPI’s Closing Banquet on Thursday, April 25, will feature a special presentation by Elliott Masie, President of The MASIE Center. Come celebrate another conference (and ISPI’s 40^th Birthday!), meet the incoming Board of Directors, applaud the Award of Excellence recipients, and enjoy a feature presentation by a pioneer in the field of technology, learning, and organizational development. Tickets cost $55 and may be purchased on site. Business to Formal attire is suggested.
In the event a personalized letter of invitation from ISPI’s Executive Director and CEO, Richard Battaglia, would help to secure your place at the 2002 Conference and Expo, kindly send a message to: ellen@ispi.org. Include: Your name and contact information, the name, title, mailing or e-mail address of the person you would like the letter sent to and Ellen Bodalski, Director of Meetings will customize and send a personalized invitation on your behalf. All of us at ISPI look forward to welcoming you to Dallas in April.

Leverage Services for Effectiveness, Not Just Efficiency
by Dr. Leland I. Forst

When companies evaluate a support service for leveraging, the objective is typically to gain efficiency, such as cheaper service delivery. Few anticipate the change will drive better service delivery, or boost company share price. But it can, if effectiveness gains are pursued with equal vigor.

Driven by the expectation of efficiency gains, hundreds of large companies have established Shared Services organizations to leverage service delivery. While most were initially composed of transaction or scale services, as their success became apparent, management added expertise services, like procurement or supply management, seeking similar efficiency gains. But expertise services are proving to be an effectiveness play as well, delivering even bigger benefits. When specialized and extensive knowledge is applied, management can make better decisions, which lead to better results for the core businesses and ultimately, enhanced shareholder value.

Leveraging scale activities to pare the cost of issuing a purchase order yields an efficiency gain, but much more significant effectiveness gains can be captured by reducing what the enterprise pays to acquire the goods and services. The effectiveness potential is so great that some companies don’t care what it costs to run their supply management department if they can slash a few percentage points off their overall cost of goods and services. The savings are that large.

BHP Billiton, a global resources company, segregates procurement, putting non-critical or low-spend items into scale Shared Services and all others into expertise, which is staffed by commodity managers who negotiate arrangements with suppliers. These arrangements might be for a two- or three-year period, or an ongoing strategic partnership for costly and/or critical items.

Vipin Suri, vice president of BHP’s Shared Business Services (SBS), Australia and Americas, believes many organizations focus on the cost of buying in purchasing and overlook the larger potential benefits. He says, “Once you require everyone to use the negotiated supplier relationships, volume with these suppliers grows, your procurement power increases and you can ultimately reach the concept of ‘total cost of ownership’ for each commodity, that is, design to disposal, minimizing the cost of every commodity you buy.”

Suri thinks companies with a Shared Services organization can promote global contracts and gain efficiencies in the cost of purchasing, but that the greater value comes from deepening supplier penetration rates, leveraging the company’s procurement power.

William J. O’Rourke, vice president of Alcoa Business Support Services (ABSS), believes a company with the right people focused on the cost of goods sold will reduce spend costs as well, and sees the two as congruent.

As an example, Alcoa receives by assuming receipt. “If you have competent suppliers and purchasing professionals using best practices, you can assume receipt of material and get it into the supply chain quickly,” says O’Rourke. He adds, “You increase both efficiency and effectiveness without spending any money, and some people in purchasing can then be diverted to other, more value-added or higher decision-making functions.”

The opportunities for gaining efficiency by leveraging scale services are apparent in any large enterprise. The potential for gaining effectiveness by leveraging expertise may be less apparent at first, but the ability to make better management decisions that translate into enhanced shareholder value is the long-term fruit worth climbing a little higher on the tree to pick.

Dr. Leland Forst is CEO of The Amherst Group Limited (AGL), Greenwich, CT, a consulting firm specializing in Shared Services. He is also liaison for The Conference Board’s Council of Shared Business Services Executives in North America and in Europe. He may be reached at lelandforst@amherstgroup.com.

Saudi Aramco, headquartered in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, is the world’s largest integrated petroleum company. It has over 50,000 employees worldwide and over 100,000 contractors.

In 1999, as part of an organizational redesign project, Saudi Aramco Training and Career Development began investigating the feasibility of creating an internal performance consulting capability for the company. This culminated in the naming of 14 performance improvement consultant (PIC) candidates who began a rigorous four-month training program in September 2001. They will deploy to their home business units starting this month. A second group will begin training in April 2002. Business units represented in the first group include refining operations, international operations, exploration/producing, gas operations, terminal operations, employee relations, industrial security, and tanker operations.

A major innovation of the program is the use of technical and business professionals from core business units as PICs, rather than training personnel. Most of the PICs, all designated as having high potential for promotion, have backgrounds in engineering, finance, and management. Professional experience ranges from 12 to 21 years. Management views the PIC training and work experience as very valuable and have made the PIC position a development step for future high-level managers.

Additionally, PICs receive a series of detailed briefings on the types of performance interventions available to solve performance problems:

PICs are also assigned experienced mentors to provide feedback on development activities and work projects. A network of SMEs has been identified to provide technical support in performance analysis and intervention selection/implementation. PICs regularly meet with members of executive management from various business lines for briefings on significant performance and HR issues confronting the company in the next five years.

The evaluation of overall program success will consist of measured cost savings/performance improvements of PIC projects, utilization in Saudi Aramco business units, and feedback from upper management.

The continued success of your organization depends on the ability of its people to assimilate cutting-edge information and tools that will propel the organization to greater efficiency and productivity.

A highlight of the 40^th Annual International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo, the ISPI Performance Improvement Expo is an important source of information and tools for performance improvement, training, instructional design, and organizational development professionals.

ISPI exhibitors are people you’ll want to get to know. Visit with them. Pick their brains. Sample their offerings. Meet an important new partner. Resolve a costly problem. The ROI may pay for the Conference many times over!

Exhibitors are companies and organizations that offer products, services, and programs designed to help you measurably improve individual and organizational performance using systematic and reproducible means.

Plan to meet with ISPI exhibitors to learn about the latest tools and information that will help you to:

So, be sure to budget plenty of time to visit with, and benefit from, ISPI exhibitors. For a list of companies that have exhibited in recent years, click here: http://www.ispi.org/conference/2002/Expo/index.htm.

As disproportionate coverage of current world news events pushes other news to the back pages, I have begun to look there for non-September 11 related articles that might have significant meaning for the future of our field. On page 9, section E of a recent Montreal Gazette, I read where monthly sales of video games have passed sales of movie tickets.

Since most of those sales are to the “younger generation,” this does not bode well for the future of the movie industry (Harry Potter excepted). With video games, people are involved with their entertainment as opposed to passive watching. This generation is going to demand that their forms of entertainment allow for more interactivity. Unless the movie industry changes significantly, it will be a footnote in history. I don’t imagine that the movie industry is sitting back and allowing this to happen. Somewhere movie corporate giants must be increasingly looking to gamers to help design the entertainment of the future (I hope they do a better job than Tomb Raider).

For us in the HPT field, this means that future participants in our interventions will also be looking for more interactivity, but perhaps interactivity on an individual basis, not group work. This could provide more “juice” to the constructivist theory of learning.

Younger generations are always looking for ways to separate themselves out from the mainstream. My own generation became the “Woodstock” generation. We differentiated from our predecessors by our look (long hair, “hippie” clothing) and our thinking (free speech, free love, etc.). We knew that we would change the world once the balance of power shifted from our predecessors to us. Was that the “knowledge” of a “baby boomer” generation that had grown up in the optimism of the 1950s where everything was handed to them by a generation that had lived through two world wars and a depression?

Today’s younger generation has separated themselves by a look (tattoos, body piercings, clothing, etc.) and by a knowledge area, computers.

Talking to a recent McGill University graduate, I found out that even in these difficult economic times, most of his graduating friends already had jobs. He was starting next week to work for Nortel, one of the larger firms in the computer industry. He and his friends will be highly paid, working in fields that, for the most part, are foreign to our generation. His generation is not looking to change the world, but their technology will.

We wanted to change the world and we did, but not through the methodology that we thought would be our engine, free speech, free love, music, and peace. Our engine was an unanticipated outcome; a change in attitude that broke down walls, crashed through colored glass ceilings, and created openness that led to the successes of today’s generation.

What will be the “driver” for this generation? If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy, the top level is self-actualization. What is beyond self-actualization? If this generation has already self-actualized (many think that this is the case) what will push them further? One place we might look is to our own Roger Kaufman and his levels of strategic planning. If we think of reaching the micro level as reaching self-actualization, then we have two more levels to go, actualizing the organization and actualizing the community. These are definitely noble goals and we do see some of the remaining dot.com millionaires moving into these realms. What is needed however, is a strategy to help them move in these directions.

Before we get into that strategy, however, it might be useful to re-examine some of Maslow’s work to see if his Psychology of Being work from the 50s and 60s says anything to us in HPT today.

In the first Handbook of Human Performance Technology, John Keller (p. 282) states: “Maslow (1954), trying to give structure and meaning to the proliferation of defined human characteristics derived from trait theory in psychology, defined seven major categories of human motives, or needs.”

Maslow’s list spans the gamut from survival to self-actualization. As Keller states in the same citation “...his list is widely used to assist in diagnosing performance problems that are due to motivational gaps.” As a diagnosis aid, Maslow’s list has been useful for both neophyte and experienced performance technologists. Many ISPI’ers have used his hierarchy of needs in helping individuals in a variety of organizations understand the process of needs assessment and gap analysis.

While HPT has taken Maslow’s hierarchy and used it effectively, it has not looked to interpret other writings of Maslow for implications for the field. In Herbert Otto’s book, Human Potentialities: The Challenge and the Promise (1968), Maslow discusses the concept of synergy in the society and in the individual. It is this concept and its implications for HPT that requires further exploration.

Synergy was not Maslow’s concept. He credited the work of Ruth Benedict, a cultural anthropologist working to establish a construct of comparative sociology. Ms. Benedict studied many cultures, especially American Indian (1930s jargon) ones. She was looking to describe societies from a holistic viewpoint. She examined a wide variety of Native American cultures to find common features among and between the cultures. She found eight cultures that she divided into four opposite pairs. In each pair, one culture had high moral values and the other had low moral values. In each pair, one culture was anxious and the other wasn’t. In each pair, one was aggressive and the other was loving. One set of cultures she liked and one set she didn’t. What was common to the four cultures she liked and the four she disliked? In looking at generalizable features such as: race, geography, climate, size, wealth, she could not find features that explained differences between the groups. She then made her inferential leap of looking for a function of behavior and not the overt behavior itself. She initially called the cultures she liked, “secure” and the ones she didn't “insecure.”

She later chose the concepts of “high synergy” and “low synergy” to distinguish the secure and insecure cultures.

Maslow describes all synergy states (in the world, society, person, nature, self, etc.) as “...states in which selfishness becomes the same as unselfishness, that is when pursuing ‘unselfish ends’ I must also benefit myself, i.e., when the dichotomy is resolved and transcended; states of society when virtue pays, i.e., when it is rewarded extrinsically as well as intrinsically; when it doesn’t cost too much to be virtuous, or intelligent, or perspicacious, or beautiful, or honest; states in which it is easy to be good; states which discourage resentment, counter values and counter-morality (hatred and fear of excellence, truth, goodness, beauty, etc.); all states that increase the correlation between the true, the good, the beautiful, etc., and move them toward their ideal unity with each other.” Now there’s a sentence that my word processing system didn’t like.

If we extrapolate the concepts of low and high synergy to correlate with Kaufman’s micro, macro, and mega levels of planning they seem to dovetail nicely. What Maslow seems to be talking about is that by striving to do what is right and beneficial for society, you will also do what’s right and beneficial for you, the division, and the organization.

I talked about developing a strategy to do this, but it looks like that will have to wait until next time. Any comments from the readership would be welcome. I may be reached at info@mvmcommunications.com.

In this employment market you need all the connections you can get. Use your best career connections, the ISPI Job Bank available all yearlong and the ISPI Job Fair at the 2002 International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo! Hundreds of organizations each year looking to hire the best in the field of performance improvement are linked with qualified individuals through the ISPI Job Bank and by attending the ISPI Job Fair. Save time, save money, and hire the best person or find the best job.

Many of us have been searching for a really user-friendly bridge between current research and management/work practices. There’s a new site, www.theritestuff.com that makes that bridge. It has high aspirations to make research from academic publications, research institutions, and business press (globally) available for action in the workplace. The site has lots of free stuff—including insights and assessments with other features being developed .

Pat McLagan, theRITEstuff’s founder says, “There’s more to come...! There are two goals driving this initiative. First is to accelerate change in our institutions around the world: diffusion of what works is too slow! The second is to bridge research and action. There are real connections between results and practices. We just have to find and showcase them in ways that inspire action.”

The site also features reports that you can purchase in a notes-and-slides format that highlight research findings about what practices link with results. Currently there are five reports available that review current literature and present practices to (1) attract, retain, and get high performance with employees; (2) attract and retain customers; (3) create an organization that attracts investment and funding; (4) lead organizations to global success; and (5) form successful alliances. A new report that deals with change management will be available shortly.

The reports are current, focused, informative, clear, well-referenced, and interesting. Each report also has a slide presentation for presenting the information to others. These reports can serve as an excellent resource to update the experienced professional or to educate someone new to the subject.

ISPI has negotiated a reduced price for our members. Each of the reports usually sells for $125. By using the “promotion code” ISPI01 when ordering the reports, you will receive an introductory 20% discount bringing the price down to $100 for each report. This introductory offer is good through March 31, 2002 when it will return to a permanent 10% discount. Click theRITEstuff reports to learn more.

TechLearn 2001: A Conference Report
by Roger Chevalier, ISPI Director of HPT Information

I had the distinct pleasure of representing ISPI at the annual TechLearn conference held in Orlando, Florida from September 28-31, 2001. While this annual conference focuses on e-learning as the preferred intervention, many of the participants were open to ISPI’s performance improvement message.

Several ISPI members attended the conference, including Allison Rossett who presented a three-hour pre-conference workshop entitled, Beyond Multimediocrity: A Tour of Instructional Design Basics, to rave reviews.

The one-hour panel discussion that I moderated focused on the need for more research to measure the effectiveness of e-learning and various forms of blended learning (mixtures of e-learning and other traditional training methodologies). The attendees understood that documenting e-learning cost savings when compared to classroom training is only part of the evaluation that needs to be done.

After attending the conference, I believe there is a lot that ISPI can do for the e-learning community. While they have a technology that efficiently delivers knowledge, standardizes training delivery, and is available 24/7 (sounds a bit like programmed instruction), many realize that the efficient delivery of knowledge may not be the most effective way to improve performance.

Elliott Masie, the founder and host of TechLearn, will be the featured speaker at ISPI’s 2002 International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo Closing Banquet, where he will give us his insight into the role of technology in learning and performance. Be sure to reserve your seat when you register online for the conference at www.ispi.org. For a full report on the TechLearn conference, click TechLearn 2001 Trip Report or visit www.masie.com.

ISPI’s Refer-A-Member Campaign was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who participated! More than 800 people were referred in just two months!

ISPI is pleased to announce that the winner of the Refer-A-Member contest is...Teresa Davenport of Davenport Design and Development Inc., in Dothan, Alabama. Teresa will receive free registration to ISPI’s 2002 International Performance Improvement Conference & Exposition in Dallas, Texas this April 21-25, 2002. Join Teresa and more than 2000 Human Performance Technologists at the premier performance improvement event of the year! Sign up for ISPI’s 2002 International Performance Improvement Conference & Expo before January 11 and take advantage of the Early Bird rate!

Keep up with the latest information in the field of Human Performance Technology, network with your colleagues, continue to have access to great professional resources. Don’t let your trial membership expire!

If you signed-up for an ISPI trial membership, your expiration date is approaching fast. Hurry to renew your membership today so you don’t miss a single issue of Performance Improvement journal or our new and informative electronic newsletter PerformanceXpress. To guarantee that you don’t lose out on any of the great benefits of ISPI membership, simply click here to renew your membership online today.

I agree with Edward Shaw’s observation (in his commentary Why ‘Working Smarter’ Isn’t Working: White-Collar Productivity Improvement in the October, 2001 issue of Performance Improvement) that few organizations are truly working smarter instead of harder. But I would caution against talking to those individuals and organizations not working smarter to determine if “working smarter” works. “Working smarter” is just about automatic if and when the following conditions are present:

Sounds simple, but let me repeat, I agree that most organizations are not accomplishing this—yet. I’ve been helping teams and organizations get these conditions in place for the past 10 years. Those teams that get most of their people operating in these conditions most of the time get significant measurable improvements in productivity (Esque, 2001). The individuals working in these conditions also consistently report that they are working less hours and feel more in control than they did before the conditions were introduced.

Aligning and clarifying performance goals requires translating high-level (e.g. business) goals into team and individual output goals. In his commentary, Mr. Shaw suggests that this cannot be done in the case of white-collar workers: “... it is virtually impossible to measure the only real product of an individual white-collar worker’s output (his or her thoughts...).” But most of my work has been with high-tech “knowledge” workers and I have every reason to believe that the same approach works with anyone who makes a traceable contribution to an organization’s goals.

Tom Gilbert, Dale Brethower, Geary Rummler, Don Tosti, and Joe Harless are just a few of the ISPI “pathfinders” that put tremendous emphasis on the importance of beginning performance improvement with a focus on performance outputs. In fact, according to Gilbert’s (1978/1996) definition of worthy performance, performance does not exist without accomplishments (outputs). It would be difficult indeed to improve the productivity of workers not expected to have any accomplishments. Personally, I haven’t run into any of those yet.

Performance Improvement: Principles & Practices was held in Barcelona, Spain, October 2001. Roger Addison and Lynn Kearny facilitated the session. Ten countries were represented during the three-day session.

Monique Müller, institute participant and ISPI member from Switzerland said, “The institute gave me a sound theoretical basis for human performance technology, useful tools and techniques for applying HPT, and ample space for practicing. My main reason for attending the institute was to fill the gap in my knowledge of evaluation and measurement of performance improvement projects. It was worthwhile: I learned the procedures on the spot and took home advice, job aids, and other tools, as well as recommendations of publications.

Both instructors shared with us their wealth of experience from different industries. They were—and still are—supportive with the transfer to participants’ specific work needs. Their sense of humor was essential in creating a learning environment that was also fun.

This institute took place in Barcelona with a group of 19 participants from 10 different countries—what a treasure of different insights and experiences!”

In addition to the three-day, on-site program, ISPI, in cooperation with the Department of Instructional & Performance Technology at Boise State University, has made Principles & Practices available online, February 4-22, 2002. Click here to learn more about ISPI’s Principles & Practices Institute.

ISPI is looking for Human Performance Technology (HPT) articles (approximately 500 words and not previously published) for PerformanceXpress that bridge the gap from research to practice (please, no product or service promotion is permitted). Below are a few examples of the article formats that can be used:

In addition to the article, please include a short bio (2-3 lines) and a contact email address. All submissions should be sent to april@ispi.org. Each article will be reviewed by one of ISPI’s on-staff HPT experts, and the author will be contacted if it is accepted for publication.

ISPI would like to apologize for an editing error that appeared in the article Expanding Our Horizons for Performance Improvement by Roger Kaufman, PhD, in the November/December 2001 issue of News & Notes. The following sentence should have referenced a 707 and not a 767 as indicated in the article.

Feel free to forward ISPI’s PerformanceXpress newsletter to your colleagues or anyone you think may benefit from the information. If you are reading someone else’s PerformanceXpress, send your complete contact information to april@ispi.org, and you will be added to the PerformanceXpress emailing list.

PerformanceXpress (formerly News & Notes) is an ISPI member benefit designed to build community, stimulate discussion, and keep you informed of the Society’s activities and events. This newsletter is published monthly and will be emailed to you at the beginning of each month.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact April Davis, ISPI’s Director of Periodicals, at april@ispi.org.

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