Advanced Performance Management and the Science of Precision Employee Motivation

With a Master’s degree in Organization Development, I’ve had an opportunity to both systematically explore the literature on high performance organizations and to test it in direct practice as a team leader, psychotherapist and as an internal and external organizational consultant.

I've fully explored the real world limitations of the most celebrated models of organizational design, leadership and team development. In one way or another, all of these approaches boil down to the effective practice organizational performance management. It turns out that there’s nothing much new under the organization development sun.

One of the things that never fails to amaze me is how the same basic theories of organizational change and transformation that were first put forward in the 1940’s and 50’s, are constantly being repackaged and couched in the hottest new buzz words.

Organizational science is not much more than the perpetual re-invention and re-marketing of open systems theory with an emphasis on the organizational culture and processes which have always defined the human side of enterprise; - the so-called intangibles.

For example, the old model of “organizational learning” has been re-branded as “collaborative” organizational and team learning. Whether it’s organizational change management, management by objectives or high involvement work systems, the same general principals are applied over and over again, but they’re clothed and delivered in the emergent popular language of the day.

The major limitations of these constantly reinvented organizational interventions is that their best supportive case studies have limited or poor transferability to many new organizational settings. Just because a particular organizational transition model worked at GE, doesn’t mean that it’s going to work at RIM. A fortune 100 success story will not necessarily replicate itself in a heavily unionized or non-profit setting with a very different organizational design.

What about the leadership attribution bias, also known as the fundamental attribution error as it's applied in leadership studies?

Well, the large majority of modern organizational leadership stories, from Jack Welsh to Steve Jobs, often describe a leader who thrives within a resource rich organizational system, with the world’s most highly skilled business dream-teams working underneath and beside them.

The basic argument of the leadership attribution bias is that you or I might also be great organizational leaders or politicians if we were placed at the head of major organizations that were already built, funded and destined for success before we ever got there.

Can you imagine having an unlimited supply of cash and the world’s leading experts at your disposal to build your own current business? I can! It's kind of like how anyone can become a popular media star if they can get their foot into the the Hollywood star-making machine.

Conversely, like any world or business leader in the current global economic climate, even the most natural born leader is likely to fail when their supportive organizational conditions are not as vibrant or conducive to success.This can be seen clearly in the success of presidents who take office during economic boom times vs presidents who take office during or just before a financial crisis.

I’d hate to be a senior leader in a failing financial institution right now. I’d also hate to be a Washington politician after that recent 60 minutes story on the booming political insider trading that’s going on.

So, is there anything new in the field of performance management? Is there any recent model or approach that transcends the standard 50 year old cookie-cutter tool kit of the average organizational consultant?

Yes there is. It’s a radical new approach to organizational performance management that has the unique ability to completely adapt itself in a way that meets the unique strategic and cultural needs of each employee, team and organization.

As a precision targeted performance management process, this new approach can be seamlessly integrated into any pre-existent organizational system, process or culture. It will also target-fuel the most challenging transition management projects.

It will also super motivate just about any kind of employee (unless there is serious mental illness or inhibited human learning) or any kind of teamwork. It can even be implemented in organizational contexts as divergent as a brick and mortar organization to the most state of the art virtual online business. From the most necessarily rigid command and control hierarchies to the flattest, most participative cross-functionally integrated multinational.

It’s called “Applied Behavioral Analysis” or ABA. It’s the same behavioral science orientation that’s used in the most effective treatments for the autism spectrum disorders; clinical depression and the most effective forms of couples-counseling for the most seriously distressed relationships (i.e. substance abuse and partner violence treatment).

ABA is rooted in over 100 years’ worth of the strongest scientific study of human motivation. It’s now being adapted as the basis for the most effective and powerful performance management systems currently available.

Well it turns out that ABA Performance Management Systems are as easy to develop and apply as ABC; - the ABCs of behavioral science that is. These include the Antecedents (the people, places things or events that precede), the targeted organizational or employee role Behavior and the direct Consequences that sustain, accelerate or extinguish that desired organizational behavior.

It turns out that most of the effective organizational improvement initiatives on record can be re-analyzed in terms of the precise definition of the desired employee behaviors that made those initiatives a reality. On the other hand, organizational interventions that have flopped, can also be systematically explored in terms of the failure of each organization to shape and support the desired organizational behaviors it needed for success.

In a change management intervention, for example, there are specific employee behaviors (often new ones) that need to take place for the new organizational system to take shape. For example, when a large high tech company moves from making hardware to making software or when new product development teams are formed, brand new “role behaviors” become critical success factors to those transition and team performance efforts.

When an organization’s survival or bottom line requires new or improved ways of working, that means new role behaviors are needed in the form of measurably changed, increased or improved work out puts. Moving to a new more effective way of getting things done, such as teamwork the delivery of better customer service, can also be broken down into the specific human behaviors that define the new work processes.

In other cases, there are organizational or employee behaviors that need to be changed or replaced with more healthy and productive behaviors. Some of the most incredible performance management results have come in the form of drastic work place safety gains. These are measured in saved lives and reduced work place injuries.

The science of ABA also enables its practioners to identify those sources of reinforcement and “behavioral punishment” that fuel undesired behaviors. What about the undesired and dangerous forms of behavior that enable “mission drift” systemic corruption and work place mobbing?

Once the strategically and culturally ideal employee behavior is defined, it’s time to fuel that behavior in order to shape it and keep it going. What is the most powerful source of human motivation to drive those new organizational role behaviors? It’s called “Positive Reinforcement”. There is nothing more effective than positive reinforcement for shaping and maintaining a new or desired organizational behavior.

What is the meaning of positive reinforcement or PR? Well first off, PR takes place in the C part of that ABC formula. PR is defined as any stimulus (person place, thing, statement or activity etc.) that 1) immediately follows the behavior; and, 2) that increases the likelihood of that behavior taking place next time, under similar conditions.

In fact, by its scientific definition, positive reinforcement simply can’t fail to motivate organizational behavior! If it’s not motivating behavior it’s not positive reinforcement. If it’s not positive reinforcement or a clear definition of strategically and culturally desirable organizational behavior, it should not be part of any performance management system!

There are 2 aspects of the ABA approach to performance management that literally leave early approaches in the dust. These include 1) Customizability; and 2) the Behavioral Science validity of any ABA intervention.

First, ABA based performance management systems are completely customizable. This is mainly because they have to be in order to work optimally for each employee or work group. In fact the major focus here is on the individual behavior of each employee. Even in team-based interventions, the ABA focus is on those individual behaviors that are most conducive to teamwork.

As mentioned earlier, the reason why so many of the most popular organizational interventions fail to be adapted in fresh organizations, is because the specific strategies they recommend simply don’t replicate within another human and organizational context.

Like individual human beings, each organization and team is completely unique. There are different “personalities,” organizational, departmental and team “cultures” that can be as motivationally and behaviorally distinct as human finger prints.

ABA-based performance management systems look at every new organizational context from a blank slate perspective. Feedback and reward processes are fully data driven. Behavior is systematically observed and reinforcement sources strategically tested for their real world effectiveness.

Further, there are some very shocking and interesting discoveries out of the ABA performance management literature. Contrary to popular belief, people are very often completely unaware of the major sources of positive reinforcement that are driving their day to day behaviors.

For example, some of the most effective sources of positive reinforcement are not always found in pre-existing formal reward and recognition programs. Further, what is truly reinforcing for one employee or team may not be reinforcing to another employee or team. It’s all about strategically individualizing the performance management needs of each individual or group.

A monthly performance bonus may not be as effective at reinforcing innovation and customer service excellence for one employee as a source of contingent or immediate social reinforcement from a supervisor or coworkers delivered at strategic times and places. Not only that, but the type (formal vs informal recognition) and the quality of social reinforcement can vary greatly for each employee.

This question will become increasingly critical as more and more businesses begin to see the incredible power of ABA Based Performance Management Systems for shaping, harnessing and maximizing targeted employee behaviors.

There's behavioral health and behavioral harm. I believe that ABA as a human science is a neutral technology. It can be applied for the benefit of people or to their detriment. The challenge here is that it all depends on the behavioral choices and the sources of motivation that drive those who are applying the technology in the first place. Is that a scary thought or a comforting one?

As an organizational consultant, researcher and freelance writer, my approach to the question of the ethical limits of ABA, is that any such intervention must be addressed through the application of the professional ethical standards of the field of ABA generally. This is true for me in an organizational, clinical or any other imaginable context.

For example, I think that informed consent should be mandatory. I also think that whenever ABA is applied, that it must always seek to maximize the behavioral health of the individual or human systems that it is applied to or in. People must be warned and protected from known behavioral influences that are harmful to their lives and to their well-being. Sadly, this doesn't seem to be happening everywhere or all the time.

Perhaps one of the most important of the old cookie-cutter insights from the organization development tool kit should be re-invented right now. Maybe this guiding insight needs to be strongly bound up with this new age of behaviorally based human performance management and influence. That’s the insight that says we have a clear responsibility to balance the needs and well-being of the individual with the needs and well-being of the organization and the greater living systems that sustain them both.

What organization development once called the "intangibles" or "human factors" are now rapidly becoming measurably tangible, often through advanced performance management systems and the related research.

Questions for you:

1. What is major performance goal for your team or company?

2. What are the top 2 or 3 measurable behaviors that people need to start doing or stop doing in order to meet those goals?

3. What are the most effective sources of positive reinforcement that would best help to shape an maintain the desired employee behaviors over time?