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Designing programmes for people with a brain to catch
Clearworth Ltd 2005
The purpose of performance engineering is to increase human capital, which can be defined as the product of time
and opportunity. Opportunities without time to pursue them
mean nothing. And time, dead on our hands, affording no
opportunities, has even less value.
Thomas Gilbert
Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance
The two causes of poor performance most commonly espoused are motives and capacity. But these are usually
the last two places one should look for causes of incompetence. Simply because they are rarely the substantial
problem
Thomas Gilbert
Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance
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Thomas F. Gilbert described himself as an engineer, behaviourist and philosopher. When he published his book in
1978 entitled Human Competence: Engineering Worthy
Performance, he said he was writing to correct a deficiency. Countless books had been written on different aspects of human competence but none had addressed the
issue in a comprehensive and systematic way.
His intention was to explain human competence and translate theory into practical step-by-step procedures that managers and other performance engineers could use to
banish incompetence from the workplace.
W - Worthy performance
f - function sign
A - Accomplishment
B - Behaviour
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Or
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By worthy, Gilbert was suggesting that humans only consistently perform if it is valuable to them in some way. In particular
Gilbert suggested we all should aim for more leisure. This was
not a proposal to be lazy or frivolous. His earnest belief was that
if we could learn to perform to the best of our ability and achieve
our full potential in the shortest possible time and with the least
effort then we would and should have more time for taking lifes
opportunities that present themselves, not just spend all our lives
at the office or in the factory.
If we learn to get more leisure, and better
use what leisure we have, then it will not be
too late too soon
He was quite clear that movement along the first row and the
verifying of Environmental factors was the most effective direction.
By moving in this direction you avoid jumping too quickly to training (Boxes 4 and 5) as the answer to poor performance. By correcting deficiencies in information, instruments and incentives
first, you make sure you dont end up
...training people to use tools that could be redesigned, or to memorise data they dont need to remember, or to perform to standards they are already
capable of meeting and would meet if they knew
what those standards were
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The rewards for performance need to be structured in a way which encourages outstanding
performance. People should see the clear link
between their achievements and the rewards
they receive
...and peoples values and needs should be satisfied by the nature of the work and the way that
it is rewarded. There should, at some level, be a
match between what they want and the work
they do
If someone is not excited by high financial reward and competition to be better than their peers then it is not useful to structure
the rewards in that way. At the same time the reward system
will not provide the performance required if there is a mismatch
between what is asked for and what is rewarded.
So one way to use the tool is to check that there is a match between the Environmental Factors and the Individual Factors.
The question then is Do we provide whats required and do we
have the right people using what we provide?
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