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Improving People and Performance: 5 Simple Engineering Techniques To Use For Superior Results

By Leon Noone

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 30Sep2009 Word count: 532 Viewed: 262 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Summary. Are you tearing your hair out because your training's not working and you can't understand your employees? Why not try an engineering approach for better results? Each of the following statements flies in the face of conventional wisdom. Yet each of them is absolutely true.

If they can do it with a gun at their head , they don't need training.

Harsh? Inhumane? Brutal? Maybe all of these things. If you see it that way consider this: do you test your people before subjecting them to training? Are you absolutely certain that they don't know and can't do what they're going to "learn" in the training? Have you considered how you could help them improve performance without training?

To put it bluntly, training will improve performance only with people who don't know and can't do. The problem with people who aren't performing is often that they "won't do" rather than "can't do". Training won't fix "won't do" problems.

A bad system will beat a good performer almost every time.

Please grasp this idea. It can't be overemphasised.

Some academics and gurus want you to believe managing people is a vexing, unpredictable, complex business. That's how they keep their jobs. They want us to believe that we need them to help us fix our "people problems". We don't. We need good systems.

Good people performance results mainly from good engineering with only a dash of psychology. Good engineering requires crystal clear objectives supported by sound systems designed to achieve the objectives. And these need simple processes to implement the systems easily.

Forget all the behavioural science hype. Get the people system right.

Consequences are often the key to improved performance.

A client called me recently for advice on how to improve the performance of his salespeople. In discussion, I discovered that each salesperson had to complete and submit 9 documents with each sale. Most of us dislike completing only one form. He was constructing negative consequences without even realizing.

A single mother on a pension recently told me that she "saved up" so she could afford the most expensive plumbing company in town. "They treat me so well", she said.

In both cases, the expected consequences determined the performance. This occurs even if the expected consequences are inaccurate and unfounded. Real consequences based on experience are even more powerful.

Ask yourself: when my people perform the way I demand, what's in it for them in their terms?

The Simple Keys.

The keys to superior people performance are unbelievably simple.
• Focus on performance, not behaviour
• Emphasise outputs over inputs
• Ask what rather than how
• Put results before processes
• Provide the biggest rewards to the superior performers.

You can make sensible decisions about methods and processes only after you've defined the desired result you want.

Truly, it is that simple. I didn't say simplistic. I didn't say easy. Just simple.

Conclusion. Firstly, know exactly what you're trying to achieve. Then focus on engineering performance: designing the job so that employees cannot fail. When you do, your job as a manager will be much easier. And you'll be able to stop playing psychologist, motivator, father or mother confessor: roles which require considerable skill which few managers possess.

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