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One of the most basic problems with the current performance paradigm is itsheavy reliance on narrowly focused interventions that address only a singleaspect of performance. For example, a training program designed to increase theability of people to work on high-performance teams is often rendered useless byan unsupportive or even hostile culture and the negative attitudes of participantswho believe it is “just not the way we do things around here.”

In such cases, training may have delivered the knowledge and skills to perform.But, because of being narrowly focused on knowledge and skills, such trainingoften fails to address the cultural and attitudinal issues that create significant“roadblocks” to performers applying what they have learned. As a result, in suchcases there is often minimal transference of learning to the job and little improve-ment in team performance.

The root cause of the reliance on narrowly focused interventions is often the highlevel of differentiation and specialization between Human Resources (HR), HumanResource Development (HRD), and Organizational Development (OD). Often caughtlike dinosaurs in the old Industrial Age model of performance, each has their ownspecialized theories of performance that have little applicability or validity outsideof their own area. Each has developed its own language and principles and even itsown professional organizations and certification programs. And each has differentbosses, with different priorities, who are measured on different things.

This high level of differentiation creates a very narrow focus within each groupthat minimizes collaboration and leads to unhealthy competition for limitedresources and management support, even when the groups are operating withinthe same business model. As a result, attempts at performance improvement areoften fractured and inefficient and, as this article demonstrates, deliver minimalperformance improvement. This is why they are often viewed as a waste of timeand money by both management and participants!

The situation is becoming even more critical as the demand for performance isincreasing, while budgets and headcounts for HR, HRD, and OD have beendecreasing. But, caught in an old paradigm, the typical response has been tolower expectations, rely on luck, and take inappropriate risks.

The Performance Equation: The Formula for Dramatic andSustainable Performanceby Douglas Peters

COMMENTARY

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An example of lowered expectations can be seen in thetraining intervention that resulted in minimal changebecause of a hostile culture and poor attitudes. Because atraining intervention cannot address environmental road-blocks, there is little practitioners can do but adjust theirexpectations to reflect the problem. Face-saving claims arecommon, such as, “Given the tremendously negative atti-tudes that were encountered during training, the resultsfrom this effort were better than expected.” Translation?“We knew there were problems, there was nothing we coulddo about them, so we just lowered our expectations.”

In these situations, the HRD department, for example, isoften unaware of the environmental roadblocks it willencounter because culture assessment and organizationalchange are typically the responsibility of organizationaldevelopment. If HRD is lucky and the environment is sup-portive and attitudes are good, the training program willsucceed. If it is unlucky and runs into a punishing envi-ronment and/or negative attitudes, the probability of suc-cess is low.

Lowered expectations, the inability to see performanceinhibitors, and reliance on luck create an unacceptablelevel of risk. This is exemplified in the inability to repli-cate success in other organizations or even in another partof the same organization. Limited by their narrow focus,and unable to identify, analyze, and compare the variablesbetween clients that predict the probability of success,practitioners simply cannot see what they are getting into.Instead of recognizing and dealing with this problem, theattention is often turned to testimonials and the experi-ence of others to sell the effort. “If it worked for IBM, thenit ought to work for us.” It is only after the program hasfailed that 20/20 hindsight allows practitioners to seewhat went wrong.

When the price is too high and accountability cannot beavoided, the focus turns to blaming. Management is oftenblamed for its lack of support, and the performance pro-fessional is blamed for the lack of results. We soften theblows by positioning this as a “learning experience,” but inreality, few failed programs are complete until blame hasbeen assessed.

The main obstacle to HR, HRD, and OD breaking out of theirreliance on the Industrial Age model of differentiation andnarrowly focused interventions is the lack of a unifying the-ory of human performance. We have models and theories forindividual performance, team performance, and organiza-tional performance, but we lack a unifying theory of humanperformance that ties all these other models and theoriestogether. Lacking a unifying theory HR, HRD, and OD mustoperate as a collection of tools rather than an integratedstrategy to achieve high performance.

The Performance Equation

A sign of just how far we are from a unifying theory is ourinability to even agree on the basic elements of human per-formance. Assemble a group of human resources, HRD, ororganizational development professionals and ask themwhat basic elements are common to all human performanceand you will get a list, a very long list. Ask them to come toagreement on their lists and you will get discussion, a verylong discussion. Long lists on flip charts and long discus-sions about opinions make for an interesting learning expe-rience, but they are not actionable.

The performance equation (see Figure 1) defines the basicelements of performance and the relationship between thoseelements. In doing so it proposes a unifying theory ofhuman performance—the formula for dramatic and sustain-able performance.

The performance equation reduces performance to fourbasic elements that are common to all human performance.Consolidating the lists of performance elements most oftencited by HRD, organizational, and human resources profes-sionals identified these four elements, under which allaspects of performance can be incorporated.

Knowledge and Skills—The Ability to Perform

To achieve high performance, individuals must have theability to perform. There is a rich body of work on compe-tency modeling (Lucia & Lepsinger, 1999) that focuses onknowledge, skills, and attitudes as the creating competenceof individuals—they have the ability to perform.

Attitudes are not included in this element because peoplewith negative attitudes still possess the ability to perform,even though they may not be willing to perform. Therefore,the acquisition of knowledge and the development of skillsare two of the basic elements of performance.

Environmental Roadblocks—The Opportunity to Perform

To achieve high performance, people must have the oppor-tunity to use their ability to perform. Environmental road-

P=

WIL

LIN

GN

ES

S

x Attitude

ABILITY

Knowledge + Skills

Environmental Roadblocks

OPPORTUNITY

Figure 1. The Performance Equation.

blocks are those aspects of an organization’s infrastructureand culture that inhibit the use of ability. A training pro-gram to develop high-performance teams, for example, maybe rendered useless by a hostile culture and negative atti-tudes as participants learn that “this is not the way we dothings around here!”

Lewin’s force field analysis (1951) views the environment asa set of counterbalancing driving and restraining forces.Restrainers are those forces that resist or attempt to mini-mize the ability to do certain things. A restrainer is the orga-nizational equivalent of tripping a runner in a foot race—itwill predictably reduce performance. Restrainers clearlyreduce the opportunity to perform.

Attitude—The Willingness to Perform

To achieve high performance, people must be willing to usetheir knowledge and skills to overcome the inherent envi-ronmental roadblocks that will inhibit their performance.Consolidating the elements related to the willingness to per-form, results in one element: attitude.

There has been a great deal written about the effect of attitude on performance. What is widely recognized is thatattitudes are fickle—they can change dramatically,quickly—and they are powerful. Boiled down to a singlephrase: “Think you can or think you can’t; either way youwill be right!”

Every human performance problem, no matter how compli-cated, can be reduced to these four basic elements—knowl-edge, skills, environmental roadblocks, and attitudes.

The Formula for Performance

Understanding the relationship between the elements of per-formance allows us to see how each of these pieces fits intoan overall formula for performance.

Knowledge + Skills

The performance equation states that knowledge and skillsare additive. Knowledge without skills makes one a com-mentator—“I know, but I cannot do.” Skills without knowl-edge make one a “natural.” But even the naturals mustacquire knowledge if they are to increase their performance.Therefore, we can conclude that individuals who possesshigh levels of both knowledge and skills have the ability toachieve the highest level of performance.

÷ Environmental Roadblocks

Environmental roadblocks are in the denominator becausethey dramatically reduce the opportunity for individuals touse their existing abilities and/or develop new abilities.

Think of ability as the accelerator on a car and environmen-tal roadblocks as the brakes. It is hard to get performance outof your car when you have one foot on the accelerator andthe other foot on the brake.

Environmental roadblocks can be internal or external.External environmental roadblocks would include suchconsiderations as government regulations, physical dis-tances, and cultural differences in language and customs.

In The Disciplines of Market Leaders, Wiersema and Treacy(1995) demonstrate how internal environmental roadblocksare both inherent and widely present in organizations. Theyargue that to achieve market leadership, companies must focusand organize around one of three value disciplines—organiza-tional efficiency, product leadership, or customer intimacy.

If a company organizes around organizational efficiency, forexample, it will develop a culture and infrastructure that isdominated by policies, procedures, and rules that createhigh levels of efficiency and drive out deviation and ineffi-ciency. This culture and infrastructure will create environ-mental roadblocks to efforts that fall outside this discipline.Therefore, the more focused an organization becomes, themore environmental roadblocks it creates to doing anythingoutside of that focus.

Environmental roadblocks are also prevalent within a singlevalue discipline. Reward, measurements, and recognitionsystems, for example, are designed to specifically encouragecertain behaviors and discourage others. When these sys-tems are designed to do one thing—say, encourage productchampions by rewarding individual contributions—theycreate resistance to doing other things—like using teams tocreate new products.

The performance equation states that the level of environ-mental roadblocks an individual will face is a function ofthe compatibility between what the individual is trying todo and what the organization is set up to do. It is this real-ity that spawns the continuous reliance in many organiza-tions on reorganizing, retraining, retrenching, andrestaffing. An organization that reorganizes to do a better jobon X often ends up suboptimizing, reducing its ability todeal with Y.

Despite the strong emphasis placed on drivers and supportby many leading experts in the field (e.g., Mager & Pipe,1970), drivers and support are removed from the denomina-tor of the equation for two reasons. First, they are not arestrainer and do not reduce the opportunity to perform.Second, in terms of performance, they have a temporaryeffect that is directly related to attitudes, not opportunity.Visible management support, for example, can encouragepeople to ignore or work around a punishing reward systemin the short term.

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The key difference between drivers and restrainers is thatremoving restrainers allows people to use their ability,whereas adding drivers encourages people to use their abil-ity—even when the opportunity does not exist. Drivers donot remove a roadblock, but they encourage people to ignoreor work through the roadblock. Therefore, while drivers willbe a key element in performance when we talk about thewillingness to perform, they are not a basic element of theopportunity to perform.

x Attitudes

Attitudes are a multiplier on the equation because theyreflect the willingness of people to use their ability and toovercome environmental roadblocks. When people are will-ing to use existing skills, learn new skills, and overcomeenvironmental roadblocks, they are maximizing their per-formance. Keller’s (1983) ARCS model taps into the powerof attitude in learning by focusing on attention, relevance,confidence, and satisfaction as motivators of learning.

Negative attitudes often create an unwillingness to useexisting skills, develop new skills, or overcome environ-mental roadblocks to performance. Richard Clark (1999)points out that when we believe we cannot succeed, forexample, our control values are violated, stress occurs, andwe look for ways to withdraw from the task. Participantswith a negative attitude toward a training program, forexample, are likely to find some reason not to learn even ifthey have to resort to complaining about the food or the tem-perature of the classroom.

It should be noted that attitudes are also an outcome of therelationship between ability and opportunity. When peopleare inhibited or punished for using their ability to perform,they are in a toxic situation where they are doing “goodthings” but are having “bad things” happen to them (Mager& Pipe, 1970). An example would be a manager who col-laborates with another function to achieve a critical organi-zational goal but is then punished for overspending thebudget and falling behind on other tasks in the process. Inthese situations it becomes safer to do nothing than to dosomething. This tends to develop resentment and a cynicalwork force.

On the other hand, people who lack the ability to performbut have an organization that provides both the opportunityto perform and the opportunity to develop the ability to per-form are in a supportive situation full of opportunity.

Ability, Willingness, and Opportunity

To sum up: Knowledge plus skills creates the ability to per-form. Developing positive attitudes creates the willingnessto perform. Removing environmental roadblocks creates theopportunity to perform. When ability and willingness aremet with opportunity, dramatic and sustainable perfor-mance can be achieved.

References

Clark, R.E. (1999). The CANE model of motivation to learnand to work: A two-stage process of goal commitment andeffort. In J. Lowyck (Ed.), Trends in corporate training.Leuven Belgium: University of Leuven Press.

Keller, J. (1983). Motivational design of instruction. In C.Riegeluth (Ed.), Instructional design theories and models.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Lewin, K. (1951). Field theory in social science: Selectedtheoretical papers. New York: Harper & Row.

Lucia, A., & Lepsinger, R. (1999). The art and science ofcompetency modeling: Pinpointing critical success factorsin organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.

Mager, R., & Pipe, P. (1970). Analyzing performance prob-lems. Belmont, CA: Fearon-Pitman.

Wiersema, F., & Treacy, M. (1995). The discipline of marketleader, New York: Persus Books.

Doug Peters has been consulting to organizationsfor more than 20 years in the areas of training, team-building, and organizational development. His hasworked with a wide range of clients in terms of sizeand industry. As a subject matter expert in personal,interpersonal, team, and organizational effective-ness, he has designed and delivered hundreds oftraining programs and several training curriculums in

these content areas. Much of Doug’s learning comes from a 20-year relationshipwith 3M Company where he has worked in more than 75 divisions and staffgroups to identify the best practices of high performance teams. His work in orga-nizational development includes new product cycle time reduction, cultureassessment and change, and organizational effectiveness. One of his interven-tions with a 3M division on new product cycle time reduction resulted in a 50%reduction in product development cycle time according to a Harvard BusinessSchool study. Doug is President of DS Performance Group, a consortium of con-sultants dedicated to achieving dramatic and sustainable increases in the perfor-mance of individuals, teams, and organizations, and he may be reached atdougpeters@dspergrp.com.