by Guy W. Wallace, CPT

In the last of this three-part series, we finish up with guidance on some baby steps in the process toward personal implementation of empowerment in your organization.

Empowerment must be understood by all who are to participate in the process. The concepts and precepts of empowerment will differ depending upon the audience. The needs of the executives differ from that of the middle manager, supervisor, or the individual contributor.

At the crux of implementing empowerment is management’s support of the concept. Recognize that there is a strong fear factor at work for those who must buy in to make empowerment a reality, namely, middle management and supervision (or team leaders, coaches, and so forth). The organization may be asking them to change ingrained patterns that have worked over the years. They remain responsible for the overall performance of their area or department but should share the decision making with their employees. Some may not be too excited about participating in this “experiment” with their careers.

Executive management must ensure that reasonable risk taking is never punished, even when the results are disastrous. Accepting and learning from failures is a stretch for everyone. Only a strong, confident management group can put into place a measurement and reward system that uses failure data in nonpunitive ways. Both failures and successes can offer valuable lessons. A celebrated failure may significantly reduce the risks of recurrence.

Just as a baby grows into a child, so can empowerment grow from a concept to a well-implemented management style and part of the culture. The process is composed of the following “baby steps” (with apologies to Neil Simon and the movie “What about Bob?”).

These steps are for those determining how to install a process for establishing empowerment:

• Step 1: Look Around and Determine Where You Are and Where You Need to Go
• Step 2: Roll Over (in the Right Direction)
• Step 3: Crawl Slowly at First
• Step 4: Walk (and Talk and Listen, and Walk the Talk and Listen)
• Step 5: Run

• What is the current situation?
• What is the current relationship between management and employees?
• How are most decisions made now?
• What is our current culture? What barriers can we see that will inhibit our success?
• Where is TQM now, and what will be implemented in the future? What’s been working and what hasn’t?

Think about the other plans with which you need to integrate your empowerment efforts.

Step 2: Roll Over (in the Right Direction)
Now that you can more clearly see what you want to do, you need to position your organization to get there. Don’t start moving until you have everything that you may need on this journey.

• Do you have the preliminary systems for training, the preliminary information systems, and the preliminary reinforcement systems in place?
• Have you decided upon a consistent message that will facilitate this effort?
• Do you have the required management buy-in, or do they have questions or unresolved concerns?
• Will management really participate, or will they only pay lip service to the effort?

• Plan a few trials or pilot tests. Pick several different processes or functions for your tests. Teach the process participants how to define their stakeholders, how to identify their complex sets of requirements, and how to balance out their product or service portfolios to best balance the needs of stakeholders in a manner consistent with the goals of the overall business.
• Experiment with different empowering techniques. Measure your progress not for speed, but for effect. Ask for feedback and suggestions and adapt your techniques accordingly. Share your successes and celebrate and reward the efforts of all your failures. Encourage all learning, even that which comes as a result of pain.
• Determine the requirement for infrastructure that changes or adapts. Systems such as policies and procedures, information, appraisal, and compensation may present barriers to the implementation of empowerment. Acknowledge those barriers and disseminate plans for tackling the issues and opportunities. Share the nonsensitive information where you can.

Step 4: Walk (and Talk and Listen, and Walk the Talk and Listen)
Once your testing (crawling) is completed, stand up and pick up speed, but don’t run. Walk slowly, even though, like a child, you may be tempted to run too soon; patient parents caution against running too fast too soon. But as we all know, much of the learning occurs from the falls, bumps, and bruises.

• Expand the implementation. Fix the support systems and processes that present barriers. Empower the owners of such systems. Teach them how to define their stakeholders, their complex sets of requirements, and how to balance out their product or service portfolios to meet the needs of all stakeholders in a way that is still profitable for the business. Provide the guidance and support needed without disempowering teams.
• Tout all of the efforts as you implement empowerment throughout the organization. Demonstrate support via all of your actions. But most important, listen and invite feedback. Listen carefully to ensure that you truly understand the message contained in the feedback, and adapt the system accordingly.

Try never to let the data from the information systems be used in a punitive manner. Instead, let that data guide you in reshaping behaviors. This is done by providing an appropriate balance of consequences.

Summary
Remember to take things slowly. Walk before you run; crawl before you walk; roll over before you crawl; lie there and observe before you make your first move.

It is an imperfect world with lots of variability. Mistakes are a reality. Increased mistakes are a reality inherent with risk taking. Risk taking is inherent with change, and change is the goal of continuous improvement.

If you are interested in reading Part One of this article series found in the September issue, click here, or Part Two from the November issue, click here.

Guy W. Wallace, CPT, and past President of ISPI, has been an external performance improvement consultant since 1982 and has served over 39 Fortune 500 firms. His specialty is performance-based Curriculum Architecture Design, having recently completed his 74^th CAD project. He may be reached via his website www.eppic.biz/.

Note: Modified from the original article printed in Pursuing Performance, Summer 2005 by EPPIC, Inc.

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by Carol Haig, CPT, and Roger Addison, CPT, EdD

by Mark Elliott, CPT and Greg Duffy

Accountability is a strategy for performance with forces working up and down the organizational chart as employees and supervisors strive to meet their obligations to one another and to the organization.

Being accountable requires three pre-conditions:

• Understanding the purpose and nature of the assignment
• Understanding how the assignment is to be performed
• Acceptance of the obligation to complete the assignment to established standards

Dr. Gerald Kraines, MD, CEO, of the Levinson Institute, refers to these attributes of accountability in his descriptions of commitment and adherence. Commitment embodies understanding and fulfillment of the assignment exactly in terms of quantity, quality, and time parameters. Adherence is practiced while meeting commitments, as employees must “simultaneously observe and work within defined resource constraints—that is, the rules and limits established by policies, procedures, contracts, and other managerial guidelines, as well as by the law” (Kraines, 2001).

Fulfilling commitments while simultaneously adhering to the rules requires the efforts of both employees and their supervisors, each having obligations to the other. Assume you are a maintenance technician working in a factory. Your assignment this morning is to change the lubricating oil in a machine. Your department needs to finish this assignment and four others today. The Operations Department’s production schedule provides an adequate 45-minute window of time this morning to complete your assignment. On the wall of the Maintenance Department’s tool room are three posters that stress occupational safety.

As an accountable employee, you perform several activities to ensure that you meet your obligations. First, you verify that you know how to change the oil in the machine. Second, you make all preparations necessary for ensuring that you can start changing the oil in the machine as soon as your maintenance window opens. Third, you discuss the oil change with the machine operator before the maintenance window opens to ensure she or he is aware of the scheduled oil change and to ensure you both are familiar with the planned activity. Finally, you review all applicable safety practices.

Within this strategy of performance, who has an obligation to ensure you, the employee, perform all of these activities? You do. Your ability and willingness to accept your assignment and its proper performance as defined by the values of your company are the reasons you were placed in your position. By completing your assignment to the full measure of its objectives and in a manner that fulfills the values of your organization, you accomplish more than just changing the oil in a machine; you give an account of yourself and of your organization.

The supervisor’s role in accountability as a strategy for performance is equally important. Supervisors must provide employees with the information, guidance, and resources necessary to ensure that the three pre-conditions for accountability, stated above, are met. In doing so, supervisors establish boundaries within which performance can be measured, and remove barriers so that expectations can be achieved.

The setting of boundaries involves clearly defining outcomes and communicating standards for performance. In their book, Leadership by the Book, Blanchard, Hybels, and Hodges (1999) remind us that without clear direction and guidance our organizations will be lost and suffer immeasurably. They describe guidelines as boundaries that channel energy in a certain direction similar to a river channeling water. The mental model that starts to form as we consider this obligation is that of a triangle with the leader at the top describing the work that needs to be done in the context of the goals of the organization. The sides of the triangle represent the boundaries (standards of performance) within which employees must work to attain their goals (Blanchard et al., 1999). 

Picture yourself now as the maintenance supervisor in our oil change scenario. If you have clearly described the task, why it needs to be done in the timeframe available, and how the performance of the task fits into the overall plant schedule, then you have communicated the purpose and nature of the work in the context of its importance to the company’s goals. If you have made clear that the oil change has to happen in the approved maintenance window and reinforced expectations for quality and safety, then you have set the boundaries within which the technician must work.

Removal of barriers involves supporting employees in their work and assisting employees in overcoming issues that impede their efforts. In their book, Blanchard et al. (1999) describe this mental model as our triangle turned upside down. This image now has the supervisor at the bottom in the narrow, pointed end of the triangle supporting his or her employees. Such efforts are seen as a willingness to serve by ensuring that employees have the resources they need to be effective. In the case of our example, this would include verifying that the operations manager has made his or her operator aware of the scheduled oil change, checking work assignment schedules before assigning the task, and ensuring the assigned maintenance technician has the right training. Fulfillment of this obligation also reveals itself through formative evaluation of the work as it is proceeding and assistance when challenges arise. Solutions to challenges must reside inside the boundaries of organizational policy and values.

Finally, to provide an account, supervisors must measure employees’ performance and provide feedback that encourages fulfillment and discourages surprises and failures. The metrics chosen will vary with the responsibilities of the organization. They need to be relevant, and they need to provide worthwhile information to both employees and supervisors.

We often hear the word alignment when discussing successful organizations. We believe that accountability, as a strategy of performance, pushes and pulls an organization in all the right places to create and maintain alignment. Accountable people in accountable organizations can create a clear record of safe and sound performance.

Kraines, G.A. (2001). Accountability leadership: How to strengthen productivity through sound managerial leadership. Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press, Inc.

Mark Elliott, CPT, Vice President of WD Associates, Inc., has 20 years of industrial training experience serving a large number of clients across the United States. He is a certified classroom and simulator instructor and has served as a consultant on several human performance improvement initiatives including projects designed to improve leadership, teamwork, and accountability in nuclear power plant control rooms. Mark may be reached at melliott@teamwd.com.

Greg Duffy is Co-founder and President of WD Associates, Inc. During his 20-year career in the private sector, he has served as a project manager on several large, multi-million dollar nuclear plant modification and restart efforts. Over the last few years, Greg has become well known for his expertise in root cause analysis and change management. He routinely works with senior management teams to identify performance gaps, conduct performance gap analysis, and design interventions to close or eliminate performance gaps. Greg holds a bachelors degree in human resources management from The New School for Social Research and may be reached at gduffy@teamwd.com.

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We note with sadness and a sense of loss one of the management science giants of the 20^th century, Peter Drucker. His contributions to the field included 30 books and thousands of articles that have influenced the way in which we look at the role of management as well as employees and their work environment. Here are a few of the quotes that may serve as reminders of the way in which he thought:

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

“My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

“Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.”

“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”

“The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”

“The really important things are said over cocktails and are never done.”

Through his writings, presentations, and consultations, Peter Drucker improved the work environment, increased productivity, and changed the way in which we lead and manage organizations around the world.

For a more complete description of Mr. Ducker’s life and work, click here to read the International Herald Tribune article.

by Robert Bodine, CPT, PhD, ISPI Director and Treasurer

I am pleased to report that ISPI Executive Director Richard Battaglia and the ISPI staff have done an excellent job of stewardship and administration of your Society’s funds. The fiscal year ended on September 30, 2005 and is proving to have been a financially successful one. (Please note that the following information is based on year-end projections and has not been audited. The audited results will be published when available.) 

It is projected that ISPI will exceed budget by over $170,300 realizing a surplus in all funds of approximately $140,000 versus a budgeted deficit of $30,300. Our 2004-2005 revenue increased by 8% over last year. The total revenue was $2,600,000. The increase was mainly realized from four main areas:

• Principles and Practices Public Workshops (35% increase)
• Conference and Conference Workshops (17% increase)
• Membership Services Revenue, including Advocate Program (41% increase)
• Fall Conference (23% increase)

The Society continues to build its reserve to ensure stability and fund future investments in programs, services, and member benefits. The revenue history is shown in the following chart:

Figure 1. ISPI Revenue History.

The fund balance history is shown in the following chart:

Figure 2. ISPI Fund Balance History.

Both charts tell essentially the same tale. ISPI is recovering its financial footing, and we are on our way to achieving the Board of Directors’ goal of having reserves of a minimum of 50% of one year’s General Fund operating budget. Our stretch goal is to have reserves of 100% of one year’s General Fund operating budget. We are at approximately 60% with the results for 2005. This does not mean that we should abandon the conservative directions of recent Boards, but it does mean that we can make prudent investments in expansion of program initiatives and increases in member services that are recognized as high value. The Board reviewed and approved most committee budgets at our Board meeting in September. A full reporting will be provided following our Board meeting in January 2006.

In accordance with our operating standards, a full financial report for the prior year will be provided at the Annual Conference. If anyone has specific questions prior to that date, feel free to contact me at bob.bodine@medtronic.com. Again, thanks to Rick and the staff for an excellent year of stewardship.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has embarked on a strategy that uses performance technology as a means to enhance the performance of the organizations that they serve in Eastern Europe and Eurasia (E&E). Their Practitioner’s Handbook describes their efforts as Human and Institutional Capacity Development (HICD).

Human and Institutional Capacity Development in the E&E region is designed to complement E&E’s ongoing development assistance activities by helping USAID partner organizations integrate Performance Improvement (PI) technologies into their organizational processes. By applying an HICD approach to its work, an organization learns how to link its goals and objectives to the performance of individual workers, and helps the organization identify performance solutions to ongoing performance problems or plan for new challenges, opportunities, and other special initiatives. An HICD approach also permits USAID to effectively target its development assistance.

“The E&E bureau defines HICD as the development of individual skills and institutional systems that enable people to perform effectively in their organization. The ultimate goal of the HICD process is to help the Partner organization improve its performance in critical areas leading to measurable results in achieving the organization’s goals and objectives. In undertaking this HICD initiative, USAID hopes to enable its partner organizations to more effectively utilize the ongoing technical assistance provided by the United States Government and other International Donors.” (HICD, 2004)

ISPI has taken an active role in assisting USAID by training their contractors for Eastern Europe and Eurasia. On October 19-20, 2005, Roger Chevalier, CPT, presented a two-day HPT workshop in Washington, DC for seven staff members of World Learning, 10 staff members of the Academy for Educational Development, and a representative of USAID.

Institute Class in Bulgaria.

This was followed by a highly customized Principles & Practices Institute (for more information on this program, click here) presented in Veliko Turnovo, Bulgaria, from November 5-7, 2005, for the in-country World Learning staffs in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. The countries represented included Albania, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Four World Learning staff members and two USAID representatives also participated. The workshop was led by Roger Addison, CPT, Roger Chevalier, CPT, and Klaus Wittkuhn, CPT.

Reference
Human & Institutional Capacity Development (HICD). (2004, December 13). Practitioner’s handbook. Washington, DC: U.S. Agency for International Development, Bureau of Europe and Eurasia.

Attend ISPI’s series of Workshops for the Advanced Performance Professional, a unique set of peer-to-peer, two-day workshops led by three outstanding performance improvement professionals. Plan your trip now to Phoenix, Arizona, in February 2006, to be a part of these outstanding workshops!

• Geary Rummler’s Introduction to Serious Performance Consulting
  February 7-8, 2006
• Judith Hale’s Implementation: Assuring the Adoption
  February 9-10, 2006
• Robert Brinkerhoff’s Evaluation of Training: Making Sense of the Morass and Building Sensible, Practical, and Useful Approaches
  February 9-10, 2006

Make the most of your trip by attending two of the workshops and save. To register or learn more, click here.

You do good work every day with great results. Submit your accomplishments and research to one of ISPI’s prestigious journals and get the recognition you deserve, and share your findings and ideas with your peers.

Performance Improvement (PI) journal publishes articles about all types of interventions and all phases of the Human Performance Technology (HPT) process, as well as hands-on HPT experiences, including:

• Models
• Interventions
• “How-to” guides
• Ready-to-use job aids
• Research articles

PI also publishes updates on trends, reviews, and field viewpoints. The common theme of articles is performance improvement practice or technique that is supported by research or germane theory.

To submit an article, download and read the Author Guidelines, then email your article as an attachment to the Editor, Holly Burkett, at pijeditor@ispi.org. PI is a benefit of ISPI membership, but if you are not a member you can still subscribe. If you are interested in joining ISPI, please click here.

Performance Improvement Quarterly (PIQ) is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes original research, theory, and literature reviews relevant to improving the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations. As a scholarly forum for the HPT field, the journal seeks to integrate and expand the methods, processes, and findings across multiple disciplines as they relate to solving problems and realizing opportunities in human performance. HPT work focuses on valued, measured results; considers the larger system context of people’s performance; and provides valid and reliable measures of effectiveness. The journal values both methodological rigor and variety, and publishes scholarship related to:

• Process improvement
• Organizational design and alignment
• Analysis, evaluation, and measurement
• Performance management
• Instructional systems
• Management of organizational performance

To submit an article, download and read the Author Guidelines, then email your article as an attachment to the ISPI Publications Office at pubs@ispi.org. A subscription to PIQ costs only $40 for ISPI members, so be sure to take advantage of this valuable resource. If you are not a member, but interested in joining ISPI, please click here.

As you know from reading this online newsletter every month, PerformanceXpress (PX) publishes exciting feature articles highlighting current developments and ideas in the field of performance improvement, as well as regular columns written by dedicated professionals spotting trends, presenting HPT case studies, and delving into behavioral science. And, that is just the beginning. What contributions and ideas do you have to add to PX? “I wish I had thought of that” articles, practical application articles, articles about the application of HPT, or success stories? Read the Newsletter Submission Guidelines and send us your work today!

by Carl Binder, CPT, PhD

Some claim that creativity is beyond the reach of behavior science. People who have a simplistic stimulus-response understanding of the science of behavior often use terms like “mechanistic” and “rote” to characterize the activities it can explain or what instruction based on its principles can accomplish. Nothing could be further from the truth.

One of the more interesting research programs in the experimental analysis of behavior was conducted by a young graduate student, Robert Epstein (1981), working with B.F. Skinner toward the end of his career. Epstein, who has since become a widely recognized authority on creativity, lured Skinner back into the basic research lab to see if they could produce behavior in pigeons that other scientists claimed were possible only in primates. Sure enough, they were able to teach pigeons the nonverbal equivalent of a self-concept, to engage them in problem solving, and otherwise simulate various types of human behavior. Their research highlighted mechanisms that account for novel or creative behavior in all species, including humans.

Principles uncovered for producing novel or creative behavior include the development of what we now call “fluent behavior components” (Binder, 1996) and the arrangement of environments that increase the likelihood that those components will combine in new ways. Outside the laboratory, we see that creative people do or know a whole variety of things that they can combine to produce new combinations of behavior in leaps and bounds that solve problems or edify observers because of their cleverness or beauty. Epstein (1995) further explored these principles with games for teaching creativity and evaluation tools for assessing prerequisites for creativity in people and environments.

The work of Paul Andronis and his colleagues has detailed the behavioral phenomenon known technically as “contingency adduction.” In relatively plain English, this is when cues and conditions in the environment make combining behavior components more likely, and consequences follow novel behavior that reinforce and establish the new combinations as part of a behavior repertoire. The environmental “contingencies” bring together (“adduce”) new combinations that yield a positive result. Most artistic creation is of this type, as is problem-solving behavior in managers or technical people. Activities such as brainstorming make behavior components more available, and work environments that encourage new solutions to problems prompt and reinforce the combination of components.

In the realm of instructional design, this work has led to a powerful strategy for improving instructional efficiency. Practitioners of fluency-based training and development (see www.Fluency.org) have long known that when people practice key skill and knowledge components to the point of fluency or automaticity, the practiced behavior becomes more available for application and problem solving (Binder, 1990). This can be as simple as combining reading and writing digits to solving arithmetic problems (Haughton, 1972, 20-39), or as complex as combining fluent knowledge and skills to produce flexible customer service behavior (Binder & Sweeney, 2002).

Combining our knowledge of fluency with basic research on contingency adduction has led to an instructional design strategy known as “generative instruction” (Johnson & Street, 2004). Following this strategy, we identify behavior components that can later combine into more complex, useful performance; we build fluency on those components until they are easeful and automatic; and we provide materials and procedures that encourage combining the components, resulting in useful combinations with little or no instructional effort.

If we design curriculum in this way, we can leverage what is known from behavior science to build extremely efficient curriculum sequences in which we do not need to teach everything explicitly because the sequence of acquiring fluency on key elements leads to spontaneous emergence of advanced skills, problem solving, and untrained applications. This is, indeed, a very powerful application of behavior science.

References
Binder, C. (1990, September). Closing the confidence gap. Training, 49-56.

Binder, C. (1996). Behavioral fluency: Evolution of a new paradigm. The Behavior Analyst, 19(2), 163-197.

Binder, C., & Sweeney, L. (2002). Building fluent performance in a customer call center. Performance Improvement, 41(2), 29-37.

Epstein, R. (1981). On pigeons and people: A preliminary look at the Columban simulation project. The Behavior Analyst, 4, 43-55.

Epstein, R. (1995). Creativity games for trainers: A handbook of group activities for jumpstarting workplace creativity. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Haughton, E.C. (1972). Aims: Growing and sharing. In Jordan, J.B., and Robbins, L.S. (Eds.). Let's Try Doing Something Else Kind of Thing: Behavioral Principles and the Exceptional Child. A report from the Invisible College Conference on Application of Behavioral Principles in Exceptional Child Education, March, 1971. Arlington, VA: The Council for Exceptional Children.

Johnson, K.R., and Street, E.M. (2004). The morningside model of generative instruction: What it means to leave no child behind. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies.

www.Fluency.org. A not-for-profit resource about fluency-based methods and research.

During the first week of October, Carl Binder, Binder Riha Associates, Kinam Sung, ISPI Asia Marketing Representative, and Roger Addison, ISPI Senior Director of HPT, traveled to Korea to present at two conferences, visit several organizations, and experience the culture of this wonderful country.

(From left to right) Carl Binder, Roger Addison, and Kinam Sung.

Roger was invited to give the keynote presentation at the Government Innovation and Productivity Conference hosted by the Catholic University of Korea. Professor Park, Director at the University, delivered the opening remarks, and President Lim gave the welcome address. Carl presented a conference session on performance improvement.

Government Innovations Productivity Institute, the Catholic University of Korea.

Later in the week, the visitors were welcomed to the LG Academy’s annual Human Resources Conference. The Academy is the corporate university of conglomerate LG Electronics, providing educational programs and human resources (HR) services to the organization. Several hundred LG HR managers and staff attended the conference. To open the conference, an amazing water and light show delighted the delegates. Vice Chairman Kang, LG’s Chief Operating Officer, remarked on the important role HR plays in the success of LG. Executive Vice President Human Resources Michael Byungnam Lee, PhD, then reinforced LG’s commitment to its employees’ professional development. Roger had the honor of delivering the keynote presentation focused on performance improvement and HR. The concurrent sessions included Carl’s session on performance improvement, based on the work of Tom Gilbert.

Kinam, who has worked tirelessly to involve the Korean business community in performance improvement through ISPI, planned and flawlessly managed the trip, helping to make the week a wonderful experience for all.

The end of the year is a time for reflection and celebration. As we look back on our year of improving performance, we acknowledge the resources, support, and guidance we received from others within (and beyond) our workplace. This month, in honor of Extraordinary Work Team Day on December 4 and for all ISPI teams, we explore sites that foster successful teams. Let’s get “pataphysical.”

These are the general categories I use for the sites featured:

1. E-Klatch: Links to professional associations, research, and resources that can help refine and expand our views of HPT through connections with other professionals and current trends.
2. HPT@work: Links to job listings, career development, volunteer opportunities, and other resources for applying your individual skills.
3. I-Candy: Links to sites that are thought provoking, enjoyable, and refreshing to help manage the stresses and identify new ideas for HPT.

Any listing is for informational purposes only and does not indicate an endorsement either by ISPI or myself. I hope you find these resources useful, and your feedback is greatly appreciated.

E-Klatch
Want a team that helps teams achieve quality? The Association for Quality and Participation (AQP), “dedicated to improving workplaces through quality and participation practices,” can help. Affiliated with the American Society for Quality, the AQP site links to team-building resources including a summary of teams that highlights the diversity and value of teams to quality. And, if your team is really good, apply by December 19 to the ASQ World Conference Team Competition. The World Conference on Quality and Improvement is May 1-3, 2006, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

HPT@work
Inform and impress your teammates with the valuable links, tools, and articles available at the Free Management Library, a free community resource on personal, professional, and organizational development developed by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD. Topics in the Library Catalog cover a wide spectrum; for some team management tips, see Virtual Teams, Group Performance Management, and Team Building. To contribute free management and technical resources to the library, click here.

I-Candy
Well, if your team is like the University of Virginia’s Kinetic Art Race Team, start your planning now for “a pataphysical romp through the streets, waterways, mud pits, and sand traps of downtown Baltimore.” Yes, after you attend ISPI’s Annual Conference on April 8-11, 2006, in Dallas, Texas, you and your team can hop into your Kinetic Sculptures (“amphibious, human powered works of art” ) to voyage to Baltimore, Maryland, for the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race on May 6. Check out Gerbil and Chariot, Crush Dude, Loco de Trash, Team Turtles, and other 2005 competitors in this photo gallery. Oh, and for the record, here’s a link to the definition of “pataphysics,” which is “an absurdist concept coined by the French writer Alfred Jarry—a philosophy dedicated to studying what lies beyond the realm of metaphysics.”

So celebrate and recognize the creativity, talent, and value of your team as they improve performance into the next year and beyond. Happy holidays!

When he is not Internet trawling for ISPI, Todd Packer can be found improving business, non-profit, government, and individual performance through research, training, and innovation coaching as principal consultant of Todd Packer and Associates, LLC, based in Shaker Heights, Ohio. For sample articles on performance innovation and additional information, please visit www.toddpacker.com. Todd may be reached at tp@toddpacker.com.

The Human Performance Improvement group at Arizona State University is conducting an international survey to determine global trends in the field of Corporate Learning, Training, and Performance Improvement (PI). We are inviting you and your organization to participate in this initiative.

PI is a multidisciplinary, outcome-based field, which has started to get the attention of the corporate workforce in a big way. The purpose of this survey is to gather empirical evidence on the types of PI competencies being applied by Training and Human Resource Professionals in different parts of the world.

Our eventual goal is to provide a strategic analysis that will elaborate on the different competencies that are being used on the job by Training Professionals. A cross-cultural analysis of the responses will enable us to determine if there is any significant impact of geographic culture on how corporate learning and training is implemented.

There are four sections to the survey, and it will take approximately 25 minutes to complete. Please click here to take the survey. Your response is requested by no later than January 16, 2006. Feel free to forward this link to others who you think would be interested in participating in this study.

We thank you for your valuable cooperation and appreciate your time. For additional information, please contact the HPI SiG Coordinator at james.klein@asu.edu or vadivelu@asu.edu.

Have you heard the latest news about ISPI’s 44th Annual International Performance Improvement Conference April 8-11 in Dallas, Texas?

New in 2006! ISPI’s Certificate Program
Whether you are new to the field or looking to enhance your skills, ISPI’s new Certificate Program Series offers something to boost your professional development. Facilitated by experts, each program in the five specialized topic areas provides you with the tips, tools, and techniques necessary to remain a top performer in your field. This is an exclusive ISPI Conference opportunity.

How does it work? Conference registrants participating in a Certificate Program must attend two, pre-selected one-day Workshops and three, topically-related 60- to 90-minute conference Educational Sessions (sessions from the 2006 Annual Conference program to be determined). Once the requirements are completed, participants not only walk away with a Certificate of Completion in a specialized area but also take back to the office enhanced professional know-how.

Certificates being offered in the following areas:

• e-Learning
• Instructional Systems
• Management of Performance
• Measurement of Performance
• Performance Analysis/Assessment

Conference registrants may participate in one of the Certificate Programs for a fee of $790 (price includes the cost of the two one-day workshops). For more information about the program and requirements, click here.

Workshops
ISPI’s Annual Conference is about professional learning and expanding the breadth and depth of what we know, how we do what we do, and the impact we have on work, education, and the international community. The 2006 lineup of pre-conference Workshops delivers on both the breadth and depth commitments—breadth of topics and depth of both presenters and the insight they deliver.

With nearly 30 topics to choose from, this year’s list includes: Don Tosti and John Amarant’s Organizational Performance Consulting: Leveraging Greater Results with a Different Fulcrum; Thiagi’s Faster, Cheaper, Better: Alternative Approaches to Instructional Design; Richard Gerson’s How to Make It Big as a Performance Consultant; and Dianna Booher’s Communication Clues & Cues for Rave Reviews: Thinking on Your Feet in the C-Suite, just to name a few.

Regardless of what you are looking for, we have it! Jim Fuller will show you The Right Tools for the Job. Ruth Colvin Clark and Frank Nguyen know all about Efficiency in Learning: Applying Cognitive Load Theory  for Faster, Better Learning and want to share their knowledge with you. Need an Introduction to Six Boxes™ Performance Management? Carl Binder is providing it in Dallas in 2006.

ISPI pre-conference Workshops come in all sizes to fit your needs and schedule (half-, one-, and two-days). When registering for the Annual Conference, arrive a day early and sign up for pre-conference Workshops running Friday, April 7 and Saturday, April 8. If you are looking to gain a depth of knowledge from an established expert or a rising star, you cannot miss these exciting learning experiences. Click here for the complete Workshop descriptions.

For the most up-to-date information or to register for the Conference, visit www.ispi.org/ac2006.

Are you working to improve workplace performance? Then ISPI membership is your key to professional development through education, certification, networking, and professional affinity programs.

If you are already a member, we thank you for your support. If you have been considering membership or are about to renew, there is no better time to join ISPI. To apply for membership or renew, visit www.ispi.org, or simply click here.

ISPI is looking for Human Performance Technology (HPT) articles (approximately 500 words and not previously published) for PerformanceXpress that bridge the gap from research to practice (please, no product or service promotion is permitted). Below are a few examples of the article formats that can be used:

• Short “I wish I had thought of that” Articles
• Practical Application Articles
• The Application of HPT
• Success Stories

In addition to the article, please include a short bio (2-3 lines) and a contact e-mail address. All submissions should be sent to april@ispi.org. Each article will be reviewed by one of ISPI’s on-staff HPT experts, and the author will be contacted if it is accepted for publication. If you have any further questions, please contact april@ispi.org.

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Feel free to forward ISPI’s PerformanceXpress newsletter to your colleagues or anyone you think may benefit from the information. If you are reading someone else’s PerformanceXpress, send your complete contact information to april@ispi.org, and you will be added to the PerformanceXpress emailing list.

PerformanceXpress is an ISPI member benefit designed to build community, stimulate discussion, and keep you informed of the Society’s activities and events. This newsletter is published monthly and will be emailed to you at the beginning of each month.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact April Davis, ISPI’s Senior Director of Publications, at april@ispi.org.

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