I realize this is a program on performance management, but we're going to do a little math. I call it performance math. Here's the equation for you that will help understand the components of performance. We're going to first look at declarative knowledge, then we'll look at procedural knowledge, and then motivation. After this video, you'll be able to, identify the elements of the performance equation and understand the role of organizational support in performance. And, again, you'll notice this is a multiplicative model. If any of these are zero or have a low number, your overall performance will be low. You'll also notice it's on a bit of a pedestal. You can have all these things in place, but if you don't have organizational support and good HR practices, the performance will, in fact, be less effective then you would like. So let's look at each of these in turn. Declarative knowledge, what is declarative knowledge? One, it's the what. These are the facts, principles, and goals. So in my job as an HR professional and educator, there's certain facts I need to know, principles that guide the profession, and I have certain goals. In the HR world, it may be processes and procedures I need to know. So, my basic duty is understanding my task requirements, and that comes from my job description. Both of these are important in the performance management process. Know your job description and the task requirements, and then what it is that makes me successful. The other one is procedural knowledge. This is a little bit different. This is the how, I've got the what and now I've got the how. This is my skill set. What skills do I need to be effective at my job? They're going to be cognitive, so I need a little bit of some smarts and how to think and reason. I'm going to have some physical abilities. I'm standing here before you and so certain physical abilities. When I teach I need to be up and around the classroom. Perception, to be able to perceive situations appropriately. Certain motor skills, I can work the computer. And then interpersonal skills, especially in the management role, or if you're doing performance management, interpersonal skills are especially important because it's a lot of interaction with your employees. So this is the how. Then motivation was listed. I'm going to call this the why, and the reason I do that is many people have a hard time being motivated if they don't understand why I'm doing it. I remember as a small child, my dad would tell me something and I'd ask why, why, why. As a young child you see that my commitment is higher if I know why I am doing this. People will be much more motivated. This is why we talk about missions and values and goals. When you're doing performance management, if you can tie people's performance to the bigger picture, let me know how I fit in, my motivation will be much higher. And when it's much higher, I'll make certain choices. And the choices you make from a motivational standpoint in an organization are, you look at, am I going to expend effort anyway? If I think it's a worthwhile project, and I have the skills and the knowledge to do it, I'm likely to be engaged. I'm going to look at the level of effort. This is, am I going to give 80%, am I going to give 120%? And then motivation, too, comes from the persistence of effort. Many times you may have found yourself in this situation. You're working on a project, it's enjoyable, or you're doing something fun at home, and you look up and it's an hour later than you thought it was, or it's time to go home, or I gotta get going and pick up my child. This is that persistence of effort, when I'm so motivated and so engaged that I forget about time, that's a high level performing employee. So the other thing I want to just talk about for a second is when we have motivated employees, they want to get better. And conscious practice is a concept that leads to excellence. So when people are motivated to learn and grow, they want to get better, so let's talk about that just for a second. You'll notice in this picture a couple of singer/songwriters, and you may recognize who they are. On the left, the young woman, is Joan Baez, a folk singer from the 60s. On the right is the great Bob Dylan. And I say great Bob Dylan because I'm a big fan, and he's from Minneapolis. In fact, he once went to the University of Minnesota. So I suppose you could say we're classmates, although that may be stretching it. But I'll put that on my LinkedIn page, maybe. Anyway, conscious practice, it's really about this effort of I have a goal of getting better and better. If you know anything about either one of these singer/songwriters' careers, they were pretty successful. And I'll just speak about Bob for a moment since he is my favorite. He's had a 50-plus year career, and he has grown from singing in small clubs in New York to the national stage. He's on a never ending tour. He plays 150, I think, events a year. He is passionate about getting better. It's not just about what he does well now, he wants to expand and grow. And if you listen to his body of work, it's different. He doesn't go out and play on the oldies tour with the same songs over and over. He wants to grow and get better as he gets older. The other thing is performance focus. If you look at this picture, what's happening, and why are they doing this? You'll notice, they're not looking at each other. They're not just out having a nice time. The look on Joan's face and Bob's face, very, very focused. They're thinking about what they're doing. They're thinking about the actions, they're wanting to get better. And even big stars and top performers have that passion to get better. I remember a story once about Yo-Yo Ma, another great musician. Supposedly, someone had heard him practicing in a hotel room. And when they saw him in the morning, they asked why he continued to practice. And he said, that's how I became the greatest in the world. Another great example of conscious practice and the effort that goes into that is a national known tennis player, Roger Federer. According to sources and Roger, he's the first one on the practice court after a game. Whether he wins or loses, he's out there practicing. All truly high performers, practice, practice, practice. It's also feedback from expert sources. It's not enough to practice, I can practice all day long. But if I have no one to sort of give me some feedback, I'm less effective than I would be with the feedback. So, you'll notice in this picture, these two people are great musicians, and they're going to give each other feedback. These are really smart people, really talented people, giving each other feedback. So in any practice session, we need the feedback loop, and we talk about feedback later in this course. And, finally, you may have heard of the Gladwell effect. Gladwell, the author of many books, talks about the 10,000 hour sort of rule, as he says. We need 10,000 hours to become experts at something. And from an organizational standpoint, if you do the math on this one, that's about five years. And HR professionals usually have a guideline that says, if you're doing a job for five years as HR manager, as a trainer, whatever your position is, you're usually fairly confident if you fall at good performance management. And after five years, you may get promoted and go on, and on, and on. But it's that five year rule or 10,000 to get good. So practice, practice, practice, that's the key to enhanced performance. You'll notice this guy is a little perplexed or confused by that rule. He said 10,000 hours!! My last training only lasted 8 hours. What does that make me?? I think when you hear the 10,000 rule, it seems daunting, and that I'll never get to be an expert. But we learn in chunks at a time. Eight hours here, eight hours there, in overtime we do get better. So as you work with employees, sometimes they will get frustrated that their progress isn't good enough. But if you keep them on the track, set clear expectation, clear goals, and work in practice into their daily routine, and give them the feedback they need, they will, too, become highly effective employees.
