Human Performance Technology: Ethical Issue, Coursework Example

Human performance technologists must observe ethics as one of the core strongholds of managing human resources. There are about five codes of conducts that certified performance technologist (CPT) credential of international society for performance improvement (ISPI) puts emphasis on as guidelines for ethical standards and ethical practices. For the purpose of this assignment we shall only tackle one CPT code of ethics which is; practicing integrity by being honest and truthful in representation to clients, colleagues and others while practicing performance technology. Integrity is a crucial practice especially when dealing with people. When an organization’s integrity is kept good it gets many customers and grows smoothly since the clients have build trust and believe in the mangers. HPT consultants must behave in a manner of integrity, respect, honesty, trustworthiness as well as fairness in businesses, academics, professional and personal relationships. HPT consultants should not recklessly give any information which is confidential or make any statement which they know is wrong and misleading, false or deceptive to a colleague, client of any organization or general public. Again, the consultants must be alert on organizations terms and conditions and avoid in all manners to participate in any illegitimate act. Incase they get advised, inculcated or motivated to engage in illicit action then they must reject and reveal the issue to the relevant bodies for further action. By considering this ethical practice together with other not discussed here, HPT consultancy organization becomes complete and professional in its doings in providing services to clients, colleagues and the public in general.

Four critical success factors for Performance Consulting

In “The Anatomy of Performance,” written by Geary Rummler (Handbook of HPT, chapter 42), there is described four critical success factors for Performance Consulting. The four critical success factors were formulated by Sara a worker of JAX corporate performance support group. She had just finished eighteen months at JAX and had successfully completed three performance analysis and improvement projects when she was asked by the vice president of JAX Corporate Performance Support Group to make a presentation to a group of new performance consultants candidates on what it takes to be a successful performance consultant. It was on this basis that Sara brainstormed on what had enabled her to succeed in her performance consultancy services for the past three years and she was able to come up with four critical success factors (CSFs) that lead to successful performance consulting:

Focus on results

Focusing on the results is one of the priorities in performance consulting. Regardless of the situation in the team, one must focus on understanding the gap in the results that is needed to be closed. This entails clarifying the current results and the desired one and working towards achieving those desired results by all means. Sara the performance consultant who was the founder of these critical success factors saw her job and that of PSG as closing the gaps in job, process and organization results.

Understand reality

Consultancy work typically entails a request for help from supervisory officials or manager of specific operation who has some information that would lead one to believe that there is a problem. More often the requester reaches a conclusion on what the correct solution should be like, training, team building or personal coaching. The requester still an intermedially with his / her interpretation of the problem and solution, contacts a consultant and requests for a certain solution, rarely mentioning any discrepancy in job performance or the results of the organization that might have occurred because of the identified problem. The consultant is based with two paths to follow in tackling this problem, one path (A) involves the consultant saying yes to the request and providing faithfully the requested solution. Alternatively, the consultant may use another path (B) whereby;

• He/she examines the situation causing the problem himself/herself
• Identifies if the evident problem can have any links to job performance or organization outcomes
• Utilize a sound analysis strategy and arrive at autonomous conclusion concerning the problem and the solution
• Collaborate with the requester in working out the project that will solve the problem as understood by the requester and provide quantifiable results.

Path (B) is the most appropriate since it is feasible and the result is better for the customers and the financial stake holders. Under this factor the main idea is to understand the reality of the situation and give advice depending on the situation at hand.

Apply the anatomy of performance model

The anatomy of performance (AOP) model is simply the use of mental model to solve performance technology. A mental model is the fundamental tool for success in performance analysis and performance consultation. To a performance consultant, AOP is like what human anatomy is to a physician. Just as the human anatomy helps the physician to discover body problems and provide proper prescription so is AOP. Anatomy performance provides the performance consultant with the frame work of consultation by identifying the factors or variables that cut across an organization and affects the performance of individuals and organizational results. Sara used the AOP frame work to quickly understand the variables that were causing gaps in the results and what solutions could close those gaps. AOP is all about quickly identifying and understanding what is going on in an organization unit box where the request emanated from. This will enable any good performance consultant to know the dynamics of that particular organizational box since gaps in human behavior, performance, and results takes place as a result of something and not from a vacuum. AOP model helps performance consultants to see all organizations as the same especially in regard to the factors that affect the performance of individuals and influence the results of an organization. In summary, anatomy of performance coils to those two points namely;

• An organization is a complicated system of individuals, jobs, processes and management
• The performance of an organization or its results is a function of how well the above autonomous components are united and working towards clearly set results.

Establish a chain of results

Establishing a chain of results is a corollary of critical success factor 3 above.AOP frame work as seen emphasizes the link among customers, processes, organization, and job requirements that are essential to producing customer valued outputs. This link makes it possible to set up a results chain connecting jobs, processes, and issues of an organization. An ideal result chain incorporates;

• A critical job issue (CJI): this is a gap between desired and real results concerning a key job output.
• A critical process issue (CPI): this is a gap between desired and actual results about a key process output or result
• A critical business issue (CBI): this is a gap between desired and actual results concerning a major organization output or outcome.

A performance consultant can easily be successful in his job if he/she establishes a result chain linking CJI to a CPI to a CBI. This is because by closing a gap in job performance leads to closure of a gap in process performance and finally closure of a gap in business/ organizational performance.

Finally establishing a chain of results makes it certain that the project is progressing well according to the plan. But if the links can not be established then the performance consultant should back away if possible and restructure again the project afresh or provide relevant solutions to the requester concerning the situation.