Randy H. reference to study in latest teleseminar?

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OrionIV

Registered
I hope that David Allen could elaborate on the source for the study that Randy tells shows "statisticly they have been able to prove that 97 percent of performance enhancement is systemic"?

I really would appreciate a link to an article or similar...

Cheers,
Lars Axelsen
Denmark
 
H

harward

Registered
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
 
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cohendave33

Registered
Randy,

I believe your reference that 97% of a person's effectiveness is a result of the systems that they participate probably resonates with a lot of people in the Connect world.

I know at my company there is a tendency to expect people to "muscle through" and "work harder" ... when, in reality, the systems that we are working within simply don't support our work requirements very well.

If you are able to locate any of the direct article links, it would be great if you could post them in the forum.

Thanks for your insights,

Dave
 
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harward

Registered
Excellent article

Dave,

An excellent, thorough and classic article on variation. Thanks. For those new to the concept of monitoring variation, in short it is the first tool in quality management. First you must know what the system is doing, and how much variation it has, so when you make system improvements you can see if they have any affect - otherwise you might be attributing success or failure to your actions when that success or failure is actually caused by other factors. On a simpler personal GTD level this means that you first must have a system, monitor it's effectiveness, then continually make improvements to that system until it is reliable.

Thanks again, Dave
 
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