How to improve organizational results with human performance.
Part 1: Identifying the Four Principles
Welcome to the 21st century, where tumultuous changes in the economy and business environment require rapid-fire responses from our organizations, often resulting in increased responsibilities for many employees. It’s a time where organizations are looking for the same or greater results from fewer employees, and where training dollars are doled out with the highest expectations in mind.
As a general rule, when training is offered it is because we believe employees don’t have the necessary knowledge and skills to achieve the results we need. This assessment can be either reactive: problems remaining unsolved; decisions being poorly made; projects late, over budget, and perhaps worst of all, not delivering the desired value; or proactive: changing the way we manufacture products; make capital requests; investigate deviations; develop new products; implement projects.
If we want different, better results, we need people to do things differently. We need people to change their behavior.
Aligning the Four Principles
In more than 50 years of working with clients in different industries, Kepner-Tregoe has implemented solutions that achieve measurable results and lasting value by taking into account four principle components. These include:
- Skill development (Structured Training)
- Feedback and behavior reinforcement (Coaching On-the-job)
- Setting expectations and providing encouraging consequences (The Performance System)
- Embedding new skills into work practices (Business Processes)
When these four principles are aligned with each other and the desired results, it is much easier for leaders and individual contributors to apply the knowledge and skills acquired in training to the environments in which they work. It is easier for them to make the required changes in their behavior.
Without alignment, people often won’t change the way they go about their work. Rather, they continue to get the same results, and the hard-earned training effort will be considered a failure.
Throughout this six-part series, we’ll explore in more depth how to maximize your training by integrating and aligning all four principles. This will include a closer look at considerations to make for specific industries.
