Performance Consulting vs. Performance Management

by Harold Stolovitch

DEFINING HUMAN PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

There is power in words, but only when their meanings are made manifestly clear. What follows, then, is a definition of the term HPI from three perspectives: vision, concept and end. Subsequently, we define the term by examining each of the words that constitute it.

HPI: Vision, Concept, and Desired End

The vision of HPI is relatively simple: achieve, through people, increasingly successful accomplishments that are valued by all organizational stakeholders: those who perform, their managers and customers, their peers and colleagues, shareholders, regulatory agencies and ultimately, society itself.

Conceptually, HPI is a movement with a straightforward mission – valued accomplishment through people. Via systematic means, from analysis of performance gaps, design and development of appropriate, economical, feasible and organizationally acceptable interventions through to implementation and long-term monitoring and maintenance of these interventions, HPI concerns itself
with achieving organizational goals cost effectively and efficiently. Unlike other movements with similar missions, HPI draws from a unique parent field, Human Performance Technology (HPT), which contains a formidable array of processes, tools and resources, a scientific base and a history of precedents that document attainment of valued results.

With respect to its “end,” valued accomplishment, HPI provides an operational definition. Gilbert (1996) has written extensively about what he has termed “worthy” performance (Pw), the ratio of valued accomplishment (Av) to costly behavior (Bc):


In the HPI universe, the desired end is performance whose cost is considerably lower than the value of the result.

HPI: What does each word mean?

Another way of examining the meaning of the term Human Performance Improvement is to define each of three words that constitute the term. Let’s do so.

Human. HPI is a professional field of endeavor centered on the efforts and results of people operating in work settings, although there are increasing examples of the principles of HPI being applied to educational and societal situations (e.g., Harless, 1998, Kaufman, 1995, Population Reports, 2002).

Performance. This word creates difficulties from two perspectives. Some people, when they first encounter it, think of performance in the theatrical sense. It therefore trails connotations of the stage rather than of being substantive (Stolovitch and Keeps, 1999, p. 4). Nevertheless, performance is an appropriate term as it also denotes a quantified result or the accomplishment, execution of something ordered or undertaken, including the accomplishment of work.
Nickols (1977, p. 14) defines performance as “the outcomes of behavior. Behavior is individual activity whereas the outcomes of behavior are the ways in which the behaving individual’s environment is somehow different as a result of his or her behavior.” Outcomes, accomplishments valued by the system or achievements – these are the focus of HPI (Stolovitch and Keeps, 1999, pg. 4).
The second difficulty with performance is that it is an almost uniquely English term. Many languages do not posses an exact, equivalent word for it. In applying various similar words or paraphrases to convey its precise meaning, something often gets lost in the translation. Despite this annoyance, its
operational sense, as Gilbert (1996) has suggested, remains clear. Performance is the valued accomplishment derived from costly behavior. Lowering the behavioral (activity) cost and markedly increasing the valued result or benefit is what HPI is about.

Improvement. The meaning of this word is almost self-evident. It refers to making things better. In the work environment, improvement is operationally defined in many ways: increased revenues and/or market share; greater speed to market; decreased wastage and/or costs; more successful conformance to regulatory requirements; better safety and health data, to name only some of the
more common ones.

Taken together, these three words have created a major business movement – one that endeavors to bring about changes in such a way that organizations are improved in terms of the achievements they and all stakeholders value.

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