Performance Improvement • Volume 40 • Number 2 5

GUEST EDITORIAL

This was no joke. 1985. I was lost. In 10minutes I was supposed to meet with theVice President of Software Developmentand his direct reports of a 5-year-old, $3

billion enterprise that sold network infrastructuretools. For me, it was a chance to ply my human per-formance (HP) analysis skills in a new arena and,perhaps, skim a few bucks off of the contradictorystock valuation of this client.

But I was lost. The meeting was in Building 5. I wasstanding in front of building 6; right next door wasBuilding 15; across the street, 21. Frantically, I askeda badge-swinging 18-year-old for directions. Sevenminutes later, I was walking down a corridor ofhardware labs (Hardware? on my way to the VicePresident of Software?). A right turn, past the cafete-ria, another left, through the door, and I was shakinghands. Whew! But where was the staff? “Overthere,” said the VP, gesturing toward the speakerphone on the conference table. “Let me introduceLarry and Julie, over in Building 18; Steve, who’shad to stay late since he works out of the UK office;and Sara and Ken, calling in from Austin. Actually,though, Sara and Ken really report to the VP ofMarketing, but they have a dotted-line connection tomy group—uh—until tomorrow, that is.”

Everything is connected to everything else. Dottedlines all over the place. And everything is moving.

In this environment—• The performance objective changes twice in the

midst of program validation.

• The real-time, network-broadcast, team-buildingsession must include people in three differenttime zones.

• Your subject matter expert just got BMW-ed overto the competition before he could finish yourprogram design plan (which he took with him!).

• Everybody failed the competitive positioningtest because yesterday, the CEO formed a coop-erative alliance with her most vicious competi-tor, which really shows that it was the test thatfailed!

What’s a Performance Technologist to Do?

The contributors to this issue of PerformanceImprovement have all been around the block. Eachhas a unique perspective born of extensive experi-ence in solving problems. A few (who shall remainnameless) have tracked the business world acrosstwo generations. Fundamentally, however, they allhave a similar message: Solving critical performanceproblems in the high-tech domain—indeed, in themodern world—requires an understanding of howbusiness systems operate and how they are evolving.Solutions have to fit not only the problem, but alsothe problem environment. For some HP practition-ers, this requires a shift in traditional ways ofapproaching problems.

Tosti and Jackson, of Vanguard Consulting, say thatcorporations have problems we can solve reliably,not necessarily with performance technology appli-cations but rather with performance technologyprinciples. The problems that can be solved with cri-

Everything Connected to Everything Elseby Neal Margolis

6 Performance Improvement • FEBRUARY 2001

terion-referenced tests, task analysis, or even multimediaare still out there, but they are dwarfed by the opportunitiesa human performance technology systems orientation canaddress when corporations alter their goals, their strategies,and their structures at computerlike speeds.

Jeanne Farrington, of Redwood Mountain Consulting,weaves an impressive tapestry of the opportunities andchallenges that can be met by a systems-principled HP tech-nologist who wields the tools of a business performanceconsultant. As Farrington applies her well-organized guide-lines to the frantic dot-com domain, she creates a com-pelling map of what we can accomplish.

Stepping Into Mush

“For the first time in history it is now possible to take careof everybody at a higher standard of living than any haveever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ tech-nology reached the point where this could be done. Allhumanity now has the option to become enduringly suc-cessful.”

—Buckminster Fuller, 1980

Well, here it is a generation later, and while Bucky’s dreamhas not been realized (mainly for political reasons), the tal-ented high-tech workers of Silicon Valley are sure gettingcloser to “enduring success.” When the workforce becomesas wealthy as (or wealthier than) the people they work forand when workers can take care of their own creature com-forts, they can move to or remain wherever their needs getmet. If a manager can’t address these higher needs, talentedemployees can hit the road and get their higher-level“BMW-comfort” needs met elsewhere. And they do hit theroad, taking the company’s ticker value with them.

Jim Hill, Director of eMersion for Sun Microsystems, meetsthis challenge with a clear explication of the psychologicalmechanisms that managers must be aware of in order to leadtheir employees to success both on and beyond the job. It’snot the money, says Hill (in the Valley, the money has beentaken care of); it’s the control the employee has over his orher direction—the ability to negotiate one’s own fate. LynnWare, head of Integral Training Systems, brings the issuehome by showing the cost of “unplanned attrition” andreviewing the latest trends in successful employee retention.

Both Hill and Ware imply—to put it simply (ah, the benefitsof guest-editorship!)—that performance technologists muststep still further from their hypercontrolling, training-centricroots into a mushy, uncertain domain where the successfulperformance of the employee depends on the successful per-

formance of the manager—and the failure of the employeecannot be separated from the failure of the manager.

Then There’s the Real World

What Silicon Valley dwellers forget all to frequently is that,while most of the world’s organizations will undoubtedly beaffected by the new technologies, these companies and gov-ernments are not of the technology. Ministering to the needsof the latest high-tech industries does not necessarily tell usanything at all about how to facilitate a technological tran-sition. Maps of the future are important. Visions of whatmight be can stir our hearts and open our minds to new pos-sibilities.

But then there’s the real world:

• The organization that’s been communicating employee

guidelines and training by print and lecture for 40 years

and needs to make a change

• The newly “automated” sales force that, during a sales

call, leaves their new laptops in the car along with the

latest PowerPoint marketing presentation

• The retail chain that, five years ago, bragged about its

new website and today wonders why companies half its

size are distributing more merchandise 10 times faster at

half the cost

Flying into the future on the coattails of the next, newest,

best thing is cool. But helping a successful, mature, non-

technical enterprise into the future can be like entering your

aged father-in-law into a triathlon. It’s more than just filling

out the entry form.

No one knows this better than Paul Harmon and Robert

Edgar. Paul takes leave from a successful software technol-

ogy consulting practice to plot the course of the e-business

revolution—past, present, and future. In the process, he

identifies several new performance areas that companies

transitioning to e-business need to be aware of—areas that

tomorrow’s performance technologist needs to be ready to

support.

And then there’s doing it. Taking that mature (some would

say “stodgy”) organization by the arm and leading/drag-

ging/pushing it, kicking and screaming into a successful e-

business enterprise. Robert Edgar, who runs Iconceptual,

Inc., has done it and is still doing it. In his impressive con-

tribution, Robert tells how his company moves 1,200 hours

of legacy training materials to a successful, web-based, e-

commerced library. In the process, he shows us his scars

and gives some guidance on how to avoid them.

Connecting the Dotted Lines

It seems that, in these environments where everything isconnected to everything else, the simple “training prob-lem,” defined by performance criteria and isolated accom-plishments, is getting harder and harder to find. As sys-tems people, we always knew that when we alter thebehavior of a single department or position, we affect theentire system. In the past, however, the system was rela-tively static, with rigid hierarchical relationships andfunctional silos in which one silo’s output was alwaysanother silo’s input. We could muck around in Purchasingwithout worrying too much about Marketing. It was notpossible for a CEO’s rant to penetrate to a worldwide salesorganization in an hour. We didn’t need to analyze thebroader system, to psych out the controlling factors, tolook at the bigger enterprise picture.

But today, with all these dotted lines everywhere…

Neal Margolis runs Skill Designs. He has beenteaching, informing, relating, and learning fromindividuals, teams, and organizations for more than30 years. In that time he has helped salespeople,managers, technicians, students, teachers, endusers, soldiers, and children to do what they domore effectively. He has extensive experience ineducation, training, and information systems withapproaches rooted in the systems-oriented meth-ods of ISD, and in the work of William Deterline,

Tom Gilbert, Bob Mager, and Paul Harmon.Currently, Neal has a practice in business process improvement as related

to information and performance systems design and development. His solutionsare well supported by an understanding of critical business processes such asmarketing, sales, engineering, product design, and prototyping across a widerange of industries. He is also experienced as a change management team leader.

Neal started in New York in the late 1960s with Basic Systems, a startup withthe goal of applying Skinnerian principles to corporate training. In the years since,he has been battle scarred by a host of corporations and clients, including Xerox,First National City Bank of New York, Hewlett Packard, Apple, Amdahl, DeterlineCorporation, and many others. From 1996 to 1999, Neal served on the CPE Boardof Management for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. In 1994,he was awarded life membership in the Silicon Valley Chapter of the InternationalSociety for Performance Improvement. Neal lives and works in Palo Alto, Californiawith his wife, Eva. He may be reached at nim@skillware.com.

Performance Improvement • Volume 40 • Number 2 7

The International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) has moved

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1400 Spring Street, Suite 260, Silver Spring, MD 20910

Tel: (301) 587-8570 • Fax: (301) 587-8573

web: www.ispi.org

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