The 97% is the system quote
Hello Lars,
Just found your question in Connect. The 97% is the system comments come not from just one study but from the entire field of quality management and the standard process control methods used to analyze whether a defect or performance level is to be expected from a system, or whether what you are seeing in a particular instance is due to factors outside the system. I've done countless studies of employee performance only to find again and again that almost all are performing well within expectations for the system they are working in. Some are clearly better than others within that system, but the people are part of the system, and ranking them or dwelling on this fact seems to have nothing to do with whether more work gets done or with increased performance overall. In fact ranking and competition within a workplace tends to cause the opposite, output improvement stagnates. Once you realize that the real key to performance improvement is getting people engaged freely in improvement of the system then things open up and truly move forward. Low performers improve, average performers improve and high performers improve - everyones performance improves. My point in bringing this up within the GTD context is that this kind of thinking is scalable down to the individual as well. If you work on your personal system for work, your performance can improve dramatically. But if people think high performance requires traits they do not have, and so they just keep working harder in the same way, then their potential is hampered. Remove the judgment from the process, seek out tools and methods to work smarter, and your performance at least has the potential to reach optimal levels.
I'm traveling at the moment and don't have article links handy, but search for W.Edwards Deming links and you'll find many supportive references. I'd also recommend a book by Raphael Aguayo, "Dr. Deming: The Man Who Taught the Japanese About Quality". It's not a comprehensive book, but one of the best introductions I've run across.
Randy Harward