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In most instances, the managers themselves are the ones who create problems in an organization, which then prevent employees from performing at peak levels, says Dr. William J. Rothwell, a world-renowned human resources consultant and best-selling author.

The president of Rothwell & Associates and a professor at Pennsylvania State University, Rothwell has helped many entrepreneurs and managers worldwide to transform their organizations into high-performance workplaces (he uses the acronym HPW for it) where employees can maximize their key performance indicators (KPIs) through human performance improvement (HPI).

How do all these acronyms fit together?

Rothwell says KPI is an indicator of the most important result from a business, a department, or an individual; HPI is a tool used in troubleshooting problems with human beings to find out why people do not perform as they should; and HPW is an environment conducive to full productivity.

He continues: “Whenever we conduct training, we normally start talking about HPW because the thinking is that if management has not established the work setting where people want to be productive, then people would not achieve their HPIs, and the business would not achieve its KPIs. So HPW is about finding out why people are not as productive as they could be; it is about knocking down those barriers.”

He dismisses the claim of many organizations that they have a pay-for-performance compensation mode. “All they pay for is loyalty,” he says. “Everyone gives pretty much the same pay raises because they don’t want to hear complaints. So management has created its own problems. It has sacrificed getting maximum productivity just to avoid conflict. So they’re paying for that by keeping the most productive workers from having a reason to perform to high levels.”

In contrast, he says, HPW focuses on what has to be done to create a climate that yields maximum productivity. He explains: “Human beings are a lot more complicated. One of our problems is that managers sometimes have not been trained systematically how to troubleshoot problems with people. It’s something that is not taught in an MBA school.”

He advises managers to approach management problems the way medical doctors approach physical problems: “When a person goes to a doctor, the doctor knows that the patient was responding to some kind of a symptom. A patient’s stomach may be hurting and it’s a symptom. It’s a consequence of some other problems. The doctor’s job is to find out why it’s hurting. There can be several reasons, not just one, so the doctor must identify the right medicine or therapy to address the problem.”

Rothwell emphasizes that achieving HPI is a continuous process that cannot be done overnight. “Organizations need continuous improvement,” he says. “HPI simply focuses management’s attention and resources on what it needs to do to create an environment where people want to perform at their peak. It won’t lead to perfection either, but the goal is to start to focus people’s attention to encourage them to be highly effective and to reward them for doing so.”

He says that when management has finally established an HPW type of work setting, then the people and the organization will achieve their KPIs, thus setting HPI in the process.

People management and people issues, he says, should not be taken lightly by any organization: “We keep saying that we can buy physical assets, acquire money by borrowing it, or lease technology. We can acquire all these other resources, but it is only human beings who create new businesses, build current businesses, come up with ways to beef up customers, and increase value for customers.”

 

The right questions

Dr. William J. Rothwell created a model of performance consulting that he published in his 1996 book, Beyond Training and Development. The steps in the model may be used by performance consultants, human resource professionals, trainors, managers, and others tasked with systematically diagnosing human performance problems and coming up with improvement strategies.

The model prescribes that to achieve human performance improvement or HPI, an organization should ask itself the following questions:

 

2. What should be happening? Indicate the criterion or anything that describes the ideal, such as job descriptions.

3. What is the difference between what’s happening and what should be happening? Describe the performance gap or the extent of the problem.

4. How important is the difference? Is the problem worth taking action on?

5. What is the cause or the causes of the difference? Why is the problem happening? Example: Workers don’t know what they should do or workers think they are performing but they aren’t.

6. What strategies could address the root causes of the problem and improve performance? Experts have noted that there are as many as 600 performance improvement strategies, most of which are under management’s direct control. Example: Giving workers incentives or rewards for performing in line with the desired results.

7. How should the strategy or strategies be implemented? This involves a well thought-out action plan.

8. What will be the likely negative consequences or side effects of implementing the strategy or strategies? Since any action taken to solve a human performance problem will have side effects, the goal should be to anticipate and plan how these side effects will be treated. Example: A change in the employee performance appraisal system may prompt questions about compensation and benefit practices.

9. How can the strategy or strategies be modified to minimize the negative consequences or side effects of its implementation? Corrective action to address side effects need to be taken. Example: An organization may commission a wage and salary study before implementing a change in its employee performance appraisal practices. This will enable managers to prepare themselves to answer questions from the employees regarding compensation.