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What options are available to change behaviors and improve individual and organizational performance? When a learning perspective is adopted there are numerous approaches to use. Each has unique features and applications that determine when and how it should be used.
It has been said, "every process is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." This truism reinforces the reality that processes and results are integrally linked; as one changes, the other is certain to be affected-either intentionally or unintentionally. In fact, Newton's third law of motion, "For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction," shows the natural tendency of the universe to have balanced cause-- and-effect relationships.
Similarly, organizational performance is the result of a complex set of interactions among people; the methods, materials, and equipment they use; and the environment and culture in which they exist. If any individual in the organization performs sub-- optimally, the organization's overall results are eroded. As an individual's span of accountability and control grow larger, the impact of less than ideal performance becomes more significant. This is one of the reasons that senior leaders' behaviors and decisions can be tied so directly to performance results.
With the increasing pressure on modern organizations to sustain constantly improving results, the demands on performance have become so intense that even seemingly small opportunities for individual improvement are worthy of effort-particularly when they involve mid- and high-ranking managers. Performance management and improvement are now viewed as essential leadership processes, and managers are expected not only to be involved with raising the performance levels of their subordinates but are also expected to raise their own performance continually.
Dr. Aubrey Daniels has defined performance management as "a systematic, data-oriented approach to managing people at work that relies on positive reinforcement as the major way to maximizing performance. The essential words in this definition are systematic and data-oriented. Systematic means that in order to determine if any particular management procedure is effective, you must specify the behaviors and results to be affected. Furthermore, you must develop a way to measure these behaviors and results and determine the methods for changing current performance. The final steps are to use those methods and evaluate the results."'
Daniels goes on to describe the ABC model...