Progress-creation
The Process of Turning Work into a FUN GAME
Author: John Correll       Publisher: Correll Consulting, LLC       www.correllconcepts.com       Published: December, 2004

There are probably a thousand complex answers. But ours is simple …

And the way that we create ongoing progress-creation is by installing two vital conditions.

And that takes us to …

The Progress-creation Game
The key to making progress-creating performance doable and fun is to turn the pursuit of progress into a fun game. We call it the Progress-creation Game. But don't be fooled by the name. When it comes to achieving a team goal, this “game” is profoundly powerful.

In the spirit of a game, we henceforth refer to progress-creating performance as winning performance. So Winning Performance is any action or accomplishment by team members that takes the team, or business enterprise, closer to achievement of a particular goal.

When this occurs, team members deliver continuing progress and, in turn, the team or enterprise becomes a “goal-achieving giant.”

Here, now, are …

The 13 Steps of the Progress-creation Game

Most games consist of the following three phases:
(1) Preparing for the game,
(2) Playing the game, and
(3) Reviewing game results and celebrating success.

Phase 1 occurs before the game. It involves setting up for the game and preparing team members to win. Steps 1-8 occur here.

Phase 2 occurs during the game. It involves coaching the team to winning performance. Steps 9 and 10 occur here.

Phase 3 occurs after the game. It involves reviewing, learning, and celebrating. Steps 11-13 occur here.

We now describe the steps. Following that is a couple working examples.

STEP 1: Define a GAME PERIOD.
Every game needs a starting time and an ending time. This defines WHEN the game will be played and for HOW LONG. This is the first step to creating Winning Performance. In business the game period can be a particular hour, day, week, month, quarter, or whatever. For starters we suggest making the game period coincide with your accounting period, or a 4-week or 1-month period — although shorter and longer game periods are appropriate, as well.

STEP 2: Define the GAME PLAY.
The second step to creating Winning Performance is to define “what the game is about.” This is the activity that constitutes the game. We refer to it as the game play. In a business setting the game play is a list of one or more performance activities and/or outcomes in which we'd especially like to see Winning Performance occur.

STEP 3: Devise a PERFORMANCE MEASURING TOOL.
To create and sustain Winning Performance, we need to be able to identify the extent to which that performance occurs. This requires performance measuring tools. So the third step to creating Winning Performance is to create or obtain the necessary performance measuring tools. A performance measuring tool is any thing that enables us to numerically measure the extent to which a particular activity or outcome is being accomplished by the team. In many cases the means for measuring Winning Performance already exist. However, when creating a particular game for the first time we may need to invent one or two new tools.

STEP 4: Create a PERFORMANCE SCORECARD.
Virtually every game involves keeping score on a play-by-play basis. That is, every game except for one — the “game of work.” Sure, most company leaders have their ways of keeping score, but what about the team members? In the typical business setting it's a scoreless world for everyone except the leaders. That's why the fourth step to creating Winning Performance is to create a scorecard — or a way for team members to score points through their Winning Performance. Specifically, a performance scorecard is a means of indicating, by a numerical score or rating, how much Winning Performance a team has achieved in each playing period. A playing period is a sub-increment of time within the overall game period. It can be an hour, shift, day, or whatever.

STEP 5: Create a PROGRESS PICTURING TOOL.
Progress is movement toward a particular goal. When we realize that we're making progress it fuels our motivation to continue doing whatever we did that caused the progress to occur. However, in order for that to happen, we must make progress PERCEIVABLE. Therefore, the fifth step to creating Winning Performance (a.k.a. performance progress) is to create a progress picturing tool. A progress picturing tool is a means of visibly depicting a person's or a team's performance progress over a period of time. The most common form of progress picturing tool is a graph, or chart.

STEP 6: Describe a GAME PERFORMANCE GOAL.
To emerge victorious from any particular game, the game must have a goal or objective. In sporting-type games the goal is to achieve a higher score than that of an opponent. However, within a business there's no internal opponent — or at least there shouldn't be. (Note: The common practice of dividing a workforce into sub-groups and then pitting one against the other is, in the long run, counter-productive.) So the sixth step to creating Winning Performance is to establish a challenging-but-attainable goal. (Note: The goal is a particular level or number of points as depicted by the scoring system used with the performance scorecard.) A challenging-but-attainable goal is a goal that's high enough that team members cannot achieve it by way of sub-standard, ordinary, or non-winning performance but is not so high that it can't be achieved by a reasonable amount of effort or good performance. In other words, we want team members to achieve the goal but only by delivering winning, or progress-producing, performance. The team wins the game by equaling or exceeding the goal.

STEP 7: Create a PERFORMANCE-CONDITIONS PLAN.
Winning Performance — a.k.a. performance progress — is a type of desired performance. Four conditions, or requisites, are required for any particular desired performance to occur — Awareness, Ability, Resources, and Motivation to accomplish the particular performance. These are the Four Conditions for Desired Performance. If any of the four is missing, desired performance (i.e., Winning Performance) will not occur.

So, in order to assure that the Winning Performance will happen, we need to conduct a performance conditions audit to determine if any conditions for achieving the desired Winning Performance are missing. If it turns out that at least one is missing or incomplete, a Performance-conditions Plan must be created.

The Performance-conditions Plan provides a list of action-steps necessary for creating or producing the missing condition(s). It spells out WHAT actions will be taken, WHEN each action will be done, and WHO will perform it.

As such, the Plan describes the specific actions to be taken to execute a particular performance-building function (i.e., Describing, Training, Equipping, or Motivating).

Or, put another way, the Plan describes how the necessary degree of Awareness, Ability, Resources, and/or Motivation for achieving the particular Winning Performance will be created.

STEP 8: Conduct a KICKOFF MEETING.
This eighth step is the last step of the preparation phase. The purpose of the meeting is to (a) explain the “game plan” and (b) install the missing conditions for Winning Performance as spelled out in the performance conditions plan. Explaining the game plan comprises an explanation of the various elements of the game — namely, the game period, game play, performance measuring tool, performance scorecard, progress graph, and game performance goal.

Installing the four conditions for desired performance involves (a) describing desired performance (or game play) in terms of the whole picture to create awareness within team members of what constitutes desired performance, (b) conducting the 4-step on-the-job training method to impart to team members the attitude, skills, and knowledge needed to accomplish the particular desired performance, (c) equipping team members with any resources needed for doing desired performance, and (d) motivating team members to accomplish desired performance by creating certain conditions that make the pursuit of desired performance more rewarding than the pursuit of undesired performance, as the team members view it. One obvious way of making this happen is to describe an exciting team reward (a.k.a. incentive) that the team will receive when the game goal is achieved. Additional discussion of motivating conditions appears in the Motivation-building chapter.

STEP 9: Provide frequent PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK.
When the game commences performance feedback should begin. Feedback is information about past performance that allows a person or team to change or enhance its performance. Contrary to common interpretation, feedback does not mean criticism and condemnation. In our game setting, feedback is accomplished by (a) rating team member performance using the performance scorecard, (b) recording performance ratings on the progress picturing tool, or graph, and (c) reviewing with team members what actions on their part caused the good score and/or what new actions they could take to (further) improve their score.

STEP 10: Give every instance of key performance a PROGRESS-BUIILDING RESPONSE.
Along with feedback, how a coach responds to instances of key performance plays a major role in shaping the amount of Winning Performance that the team delivers. For any given performance instance there's a progress-building response. A progress-building response is a response that causes a team member to either elevate his/her performance to a higher level or sustain an already-high level of performance. A key to effective coaching is matching the right response with the type of performance being delivered. For our purposes there are six types of performance. Listed below are those six types, each coupled with its progress-building response.

Failure to consistently match the right progress-building response with each of the six types of performance is a major cause of ineffective supervision, coaching, and leadership. Delivering the right response involves (a) correctly identifying which of the six types of performance any given instance of performance is and (b) knowing which response is the right one for each type.

One of the keys to generating increasing amounts of performance progress is to provide verbal reinforcement (or sincere recognition, appreciation, and praise) soon after each instance of performance progress occurs. A discussion of how to deliver verbal reinforcement for maximum motivating impact appears in the Motivation-building chapter (Motivator #1).

STEP 11: Review past performance and EXPAND THE KNOWLEDGE BASE.
Once the game is over, the first thing to do is hold a performance review meeting to learn what the team can do next time to achieve an even higher performance level. This is a form of self-generated feedback.

STEP 12: Rejoice over TEAM ACHIEVEMENTS.
By game's end one of two results will exist: (a) the team will have achieved its game performance goal or (b) it will not have achieved its goal. If the first scenario has occurred, celebration is in order. Celebration — assuming that it's fun — is a form of positive reinforcement. As such it helps generate motivation in team members to accomplish the performance goal of the next game period. Also, provide positive reinforcement for noteworthy achievements or instances of outstanding performance that occurred during the game.

STEP 13: Follow through on GOAL-RELATED PROMISES.
Failure to pay off on incentives, or promised rewards, after the conditions for pay-off have been met is a huge de-motivator of future desired performance by team members. Similarly, providing a payoff when the conditions for payoff have not been met can be a de-motivator of future desired performance. So, always deliver on your part when team members deliver on their part, but do not dispense rewards when rewards aren't merited.

With the 13 steps of the Progress-creation Game in mind, we now illustrate with a couple examples.

Working Examples:
Applying the Game
We now illustrate the Progress-creation Game with two examples. The first example concerns product quality improvement. The second concerns personnel improvement. We position the examples within a pizza company, although with just a slight change in setting these examples could apply to any company and situation.

The two examples are:

ISSUE 1: Achieving Consistent Sauce Portioning in the Stores
To get started, we posit a hypothetical pizza chain named Big John's Pizza. And you are the new Vice-president of Progress-creation …

To the company's surprise, Big John's has recently experienced a slight dip in sales. The company president demands to know why. So the marketing department commissions some market research to get to the root of the matter.

After two months, the VP of marketing lays a research report on the president's desk. The president opens to the executive summary and reads:

The president closes the report and calls you — the newly-appointed VP of Progress-creation — into his office. He hands you the report along with this kindly-worded ultimatum: “Fix this sauce-portioning problem within the next 60 days, please.”

As you leave his office you smile to yourself because you know exactly how to do it. Your Progress-creation Department is going to apply the Progress-creation Game.

Before doing that, however, you first must identify the saucing technology that you want to use. You could continue using the one that's been in the stores for a number of years, or you could apply a new procedure. Several options are possible — ranging from low tech to high tech. In considering which one to select, you consider two things:

Considering those two factors, you decide to recommend the low-tech sauce portioning procedure to the Operational Systems Committee. After considering the matter, the committee gives their blessing to try the new sauce portioning method. This method involves a simple device attached to the sauce bucket. It comprises two opposing rubber surfaces. The saucer pushes the sauce ladle, or spoodle, between the rubber pieces and, in so doing, the excess sauce adhering to the top and bottom surfaces of the spoodle are removed, thereby creating a consistently uniform portion with each spoodle-full of sauce. You also realize that with this device in place, you also have to get team members to use it every time. This, of course, is the root of the challenge. But you have an ace up your sleeve — the Progress-creation Game.

You call a meeting of your Progress-creation Department and explain the challenge. The entire staff is excited about tackling it. You describe the Progress-creation Game and then assign responsibilities and implementation dates for the 13 parts, or steps, of the game. Even though different people have responsibility for different parts, you make the commitment to stay personally involved in all stages, even if only as a close observer.

So the game begins without a glitch. As it turns out, here's how you and your department apply the 13-step Progress-creation Game to creating company-wide performance progress in the area of consistent sauce portioning.

1. You define a GAME PERIOD. You decide to make the game period coincide with one of the company's 4-week accounting periods.

2. You define the GAME PLAY. In this instance, game play is the specific activity, or steps, required to properly sauce a pizza using the new sauce portioning device which is referred to as the sauce portioner. To communicate the game play company-wide, you create a precise, unambiguous description of the action and outcomes involved in the particular saucing activity. This, in effect, becomes the Description of Desired Performance as pertains to pizza saucing. (For details on creating a Performance Description, see the Awareness-creating chapter.)

3. You devise a PERFORMANCE MEASURING TOOL. To measure the extent to which team members perform the game play, you realize that the stores need a measuring tool. Various versions could be created. For this particular situation, you create a simple form that any person could use to evaluate, or measure, pizza saucing. The form contains the Description of Desired Performance along with a section for rating a number of randomly selected instances of pizza saucing. Using the form, an evaluator can determine whether the saucing activity, or game play, in each instance was performed according to the Description of Desired Performance. Since the saucing procedure is simple and almost instantaneous, the evaluator — which might be an area supervisor, shift manager, or crew chief, or all three — could easily observe pizza-makers' saucing performance at random times from anywhere in the store. It could also be reviewed through video cameras in the store. After observing each saucing instance, the evaluator records whether the correct saucing procedure was, or was not, applied in that instance.

Finally, using the information gathered with the measuring tool, the percent of saucing instances that are done according to the Description of Desired Performance over a given time period (such as, for example, a day) are calculated. You refer to this as the positive performance percent for a given day.

4. You create a PERFORMANCE SCORECARD. A purpose of the Progress-creation Game is to provide a way for team members to score points. So you create a “point-creation schema” by which positive performance percents are translated into points. Following that you create a form, which you call a scorecard, upon which the points are recorded. You decide on the following point-creation schema: A positive performance percent in the range of 95-100% = 10 points, in the range of 90-94% = 9 points, in the range of 85-89% = 8 points, and so forth. The scorecard is set up to record the saucing points achieved for each of the days in the game period, which in this case is 28 days (or four weeks).

5. You create a PROGRESS PICTURING TOOL. To do this you make an appropriately sized, attractive, easy-to-read graph, or chart, upon which the 28 days of saucing scores are recorded in a line graph format. This is posted in a conspicuous spot in each store.

6. You describe a GAME PERFORMANCE GOAL. In this case the goal could take one of a couple forms. It could, for example, be a total number of points to be achieved by the end of the 28-day game period. Or it could be a total number of days that the score was over a certain number. Or it could be both — a dual-pronged goal. You decide to make it dual-pronged.

7. You create a PERFORMANCE-CONDITIONS PLAN. You realize that the purpose of a performance-conditions plan is to enable and motivate team members to achieve the game performance goal. You further realize that the first step to creating the plan is to conduct a performance conditions audit to determine which of the four conditions for desired performance — Awareness, Ability, Equipment, and Motivation — is missing as regards the new saucing procedure. Without going into an extensive review, you safely conclude that at this time ALL FOUR of the conditions are missing! So you create a performance-conditions plan that describes the actions needed for creating each of these four conditions. (To get further into what's involved in creating the four conditions, refer to the Performance-building chapter.)

To create the plan, you identify the specific actions required to create each of the conditions. In a nutshell, you discern that what's needed is this.

8. You arrange for the area supervisors to conduct a KICKOFF MEETING in each of their stores. To do this, you meet with the supervisors in your own kickoff meeting and demonstrate how, in turn, they should conduct their kickoff meeting in each store. The meeting agenda calls for the area supervisor to present the Sauce Portioning Game Plan by describing the game period, game play, performance measuring tool, performance scorecard, progress graph, and game performance goal. Following that the area supervisor installs the four conditions for desired performance with team members of the store. This is done by (a) describing the new saucing procedure in terms of the whole picture, to create awareness within team members of what constitutes desired saucing performance, (b) conducting the 4-step on-the-job training method to impart to team members the knowledge and skill needed to do the desired performance, (c) equipping team members with any needed resources (that aren't already in the store), and (d) motivating team members to accomplish desired performance by creating certain conditions that make doing desired performance more rewarding than doing undesired performance, as the team members view it. One obvious way of making this happen is to describe an exciting team reward (a.k.a. incentive) that the team will receive when the game goal is achieved. (A discussion of other possible motivating methods can be found in the Motivation-building chapter.)

9. You provide frequent PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK. As the game gets under way, you and your department make sure that team members (i.e., area supervisors, store managers, store pizza-makers) receive ample performance feedback. Part of your feedback involves urging the area supervisors and store managers to also provide feedback to their pizza-makers. You explain to them that feedback need not come exclusively from store managers. Team members can provide feedback to other team members, as well. So the job of the manager is not just to provide feedback but, rather, as much as possible to arrange for team members to provide feedback to other team members. You also keep in mind that executing the process of measuring performance (with the performance measuring tool) and recording that performance on the progress graph is, in itself, a form of feedback and, in many cases, will be all the feedback that's needed for many pizza-makers to achieve perfect sauce-portioning performance.

10. You give every instance of key performance a PERFORMANCE-BUILDING RESPONSE. And you urge the area supervisors and store managers to do the same. We assume that the performance conditions plan was properly conceived and the kickoff meetings properly conducted. That being done, most instances of team member performance are of type 1, or desired performance. Accordingly, the appropriate and most called-for response to pizza-maker and manager performance will be reinforcement (typically, sincere recognition, appreciation, and praise). During the first few days of the game, your department and the area supervisors provide reinforcement for virtually all instances of performance progress, even including “right actions.” Once everyone is “in the groove” on delivering excellent saucing performance, the reinforcement is thinned out a bit to where it's delivered sporadically. As with most progress-improvement initiatives, there is the occasional instance where someone is regularly engaging in undesired saucing procedure even when they know what to do and how to do it. This a case of type 6 performance (i.e., undesired performance of a major nature caused by lack of motivation). The progress-building response to this particular performance is for the appropriate person — that is, area supervisor or store manager — to provide a reprimand followed by requiring the delinquent performer to immediately and thereafter perform the proper procedure for saucing every pizza. This, in combination with reinforcement of performance progress and the incentive for achieving the game performance goal, will likely be sufficient to create motivation in most all team members to accomplish desired saucing performance.

11. You review past performance and EXPAND THE KNOWLEDGE BASE. When the game is over, you hold a meeting with (key) team members and review how the game went and determine if there's anything to learn that would enhance the success of future Progress-creation Games. (If it turns out that the game performance goal wasn't achieved, that means that either (a) the game plan had a “gap” in it or (b) the plan wasn't fully executed. Review the situation to determine which factor is the cause of the situation. After figuring out what went wrong, you would be well advised to set up another game and go after it again. It's typically not a good idea to allow failure to stick, which is what happens unless you set up another game and win it.)

12. You and the team rejoice over the TEAM'S ACHIEVEMENTS. Since you set up the game properly, it turns out that the team won the game — i.e., achieved the game performance goal. In this case, some sort of team celebration is in order. Keep in mind that a celebration need not necessarily be long, elaborate, or expensive to be fun and meaningful. To achieve the celebration, you hold a group celebration meeting with the areas supervisors, and the area supervisors, in turn, hold a celebration meeting with each of their stores.

13. You follow through on GOAL-RELATED PROMISES. In other words, you pay off on the incentive promised to the team upon achieving the goal. As it turns out, you combine this with the team celebration of step 12.

By the end of the 4-week game, all team members have acquired the habit of using the new saucing procedure. Sustaining it thereafter simply involves training new recruits in the procedure and, when the sporadic instance to the old inconsistent saucing method crops up, your department corrects the situation immediately by bringing it to the attention of the area supervisor and/or store manager.

ISSUE 2: Increasing the Percentage of World-class Managers in the Stores
Upon successful completion of the Progress-creation Game the company president is duly impressed with how effectively you and your department “fixed the inconsistent sauce portioning problem.” So he decides to give you the ultimate challenge with a new mandate: “You and your Progress-creation Team did such an excellent job at improving our sauce portioning and product quality, now I'd like to see if you can improve the quality of our store management team. The goal is to have at least 90 percent of our stores to be staffed by a 'World-class Manager.'”

As you leave his office you have a smile on your face, because you know exactly how to accomplish this goal.

You realize that the Progress-creation Game will work here, as well. You know that the process used for resolving Issue 1 also can be used for resolving Issue 2, except that instead of getting pizza-makers to deliver a particular saucing performance you're getting managers to deliver a particular managerial performance.

To start off, we define managerial performance as a set of activities and outcomes that a store manager is responsible for delivering. When a manager delivers a particular quantity of those activities and outcomes, we deem that person to be a “world-class manager.” The main difference between Issue 1 and Issue 2 is that with Issue 1 we're dealing with just one specific type of activity, or one performance area, whereas with Issue 2 we're dealing with a set of activities, or a composite of performance areas. Issue 2 is slightly more complex, but the progress-creation procedure is the same.

So you call a meeting of the Progress-creation Department and describe the challenge. With the successful sauce portioning project under their belt, they're excited about tackling this new challenge. As with the saucing game, you decide to keep in close touch with proceedings. However, you also decide to give lead responsibility for implementing the game to your newly-appointed and highly-competent Director of Progress-creation Games. In so doing, you decide to impart the essence of your “Progress-creation Game wisdom” so that the new director will have maximum chance to succeed at the upcoming important game. Here, in a nutshell, is the essence of the wisdom — a collection of general guidelines that you impart to the director.

1. Define a GAME PERIOD. For starters, make it equate with a quarter, or three 4-week accounting periods. Unlike the Sauce Portioning Game, with the World-class Manager Game you would be well advised to set up a sequence of game periods (strung end to end).

2. Define the GAME PLAY. The game play should be a set of essential activities and outcomes that, when combined, constitute a composite of store-manager performance areas.

3. Devise a set of PERFORMANCE MEASURING TOOLS. Because the game play derives from a set of various performance areas that are used for defining a world-class manager, you must apply a set of measuring tools that measure those performance areas — with each of the performance areas being measured by a particular tool. Many of the tools already exist. For example, to measure performance of various outcomes — such as sales, profit, and other accounting-derived indicators — the reports that contain that information are the accounting measuring tools already in use.

4. Create a PERFORMANCE SCORECARD. Design the scorecard into a format that enables points to be scored for a particular type of performance in each of the individual performance areas, and then enables a total score to be derived therefrom. Most likely, the length of a playing period, or sub-increment, of the game period would be a week. So a quarterly game period would comprise either 12 or 13 playing periods.

5. Create a PROGRESS PICTURING TOOL. In this particular game there are at least two formats in which progress can be tracked. The first format involves tracking the progress of individual managers. The second format involves tracking the progress of the company-wide managerial team as a whole. A progress graph can be created for each. The graph of individual manager performance should be kept private (in a file or notebook). The graph of the overall team score should be PROMINENTLY posted in each store. In creating the team graph, you must decide how you're going to depict Winning Performance. Two options come to mind: (1) Depicting Winning Performance in terms of an average individual performance score, which would be the individual performance scores of all managers averaged out, and (2) depicting Winning Performance in terms of percent of individual performance scores above a certain level, that level being “the line” at which a world-class manager is defined.

6. Describe a GAME PERFORMANCE GOAL. In terms of the overall team, the game performance goal should be a particular number corresponding with the particular Winning Performance option being used on the graph. If option 1 is used, the goal would be a particular number pertaining to the average individual performance score over the life of the game period. If option 2 is used, the goal would be a particular number pertaining to the percent of individual performance scores above a certain level, by game end.

7. Create a PERFORMANCE CONDITIONS PLAN. This requires a performance conditions audit followed by creation of the plan. The plan could be created on a couple levels: On a company-wide level and an individual manager level. The Progress-creation Department should be responsible for the company-wide plan and the area supervisors should be responsible for the individual plans of their managers. Creating and implementing such a plan requires knowledge of performance-building technology. The Performance-building chapter describes what's involved.

8. Conduct a KICKOFF MEETING. The best way to do this would be in the form of a company-wide manager meeting. You want to tackle this as a team. In addition, it could be worthwhile for area supervisors to follow up with a small kickoff meeting of their own with their managers.

9. Provide frequent PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK. This is the job of the area supervisor with the help of the regional directors and accounting department.

10. Give every instance of key performance a PERFORMANCE-BUILDING RESPONSE. This is the job of the area supervisor with the help of the regional director. You, however, may need to provide some refresher training on what the six progress-building responses are and when to apply each.

11. Review past performance and EXPAND THE KNOWLEDGE BASE. This should be done at the end of the game, or at least once a quarter if the game lasts longer. It might well be conducted at a company-wide manager meeting.

12. Rejoice over TEAM ACHIEVEMENTS. This could be done at a quarterly company-wide manager rally, as well. It could also be done on a regional and area level.

13. Follow through on GOAL-RELATED PROMISES. Incentives should relate to both individual and team performance. Individual incentives would be for individuals and pertain to achievement of a particular individual performance score. Team incentives would be for the team as a whole and pertain to achievement of the game performance goal described in step 6.

In essence, the approach to increasing the number of world-class managers is to make the achievement of that objective a goal of the management team. As such, the game performance goal should embody a score that reflects the overall performance of the team-at-large. Therefore, those managers whose performance is sub-world-class have the effect of keeping the entire team from achieving its game performance goal, which will serve to put substantial peer-pressure impetus on the lagging managers to bring their performance up to a level that contributes to the team's success as opposed to detracting from it.

TO SUM UP: The 13-part Progress-creation Game can be effectively applied to achieve performance progress in virtually any functional area or any type of business. The object of the game is to make the achievement of performance progress more fun — i.e., more rewarding — than the achievement of non-performance-progress. When this happens, progress occurs.

In the prior examples reference was made to a Progress-creation Department. We now describe how to set up such a department

Installing a Progress-creation Department
If we want a particular thing to happen, we must have a PLACE for it to occur. For example, to have a football game we need a football field. To have a tennis match we need a tennis court. To have a sailing competition we need a body of water. And so on.

In an organization, the “place” where a particular function occurs is a DEPARTMENT. So if a company is serious about installing a particular function on an ongoing, company-wide basis, it must establish a department for the performance of that function. Expecting that a function can occur without a department is like expecting that one can conduct a football game or a tennis match or a sailing competition without a field or a court or a body of water.

So how does this relate to the topic at hand? The function that we're dealing with here we call progress-creation. We define progress-creation as the act of generating desired amounts of ongoing progress. Accordingly, if we want to see this function implemented on a company-wide basis, we must have a Progress-creation Department — that is, a department whose job it is to develop and maintain programs that produce the conditions that result in team members throughout the enterprise achieving desired progress and enjoying it.

At the time of writing this, we don't know of any company that has such a department. So how do companies typically go about trying to increase individual and company progress? They do it through introducing committees, seminars, task forces, lectures, policies, new job titles, ultimatums, management fads, ranting, techno-fixes, and on and on. In other words, they do it by temporary, informal, ad hoc means. Given that situation, how can any executive seriously expect that progress-creation will occur on a sustained basis throughout his or her company? It simply can't happen. And without ongoing, company-wide progress-creation, how can any executive seriously believe that company goals and success points will be fully and consistently achieved?

In short, expecting company-wide progress to occur without having a dedicated progress-creation department is like expecting accounting to occur without an accounting department, or operations to occur without an operations department, or information processing to occur without an IT department, or marketing to occur without a marketing department, or store construction to occur without a store development department. For any function to occur within an organization on an effective, ongoing basis, there must be a place for that function to reside, or to emanate from — and in a large organization, that place is a department.

Personnel
Of course every team must have a leader. Accordingly, the Progress-creation Department must have a Vice President of Progress-creation.

Why a VP rather than a Director or Manager? For a department to be respected and taken seriously within a large enterprise, the leader of the department must be of a top-level position. People in an enterprise tend to equate the importance of a department with the importance, or level, of the leader. Vice president is a top-level position, Director and Manager are sub-top-level positions (in a large company). Since progress-creation — or the process of generating desired amounts of ongoing progress — is a vital aspect to enterprise success in a competitive market, it's important that the Progress-creation Department be taken seriously and accorded high status — which means that it must be headed up by a high-level position.

PROFILE OF THE LEADER
The leader of the Progress-creation Department probably should be one-quarter behavioral scientist, one-quarter systems-innovator, one-quarter evangelist-persuader, and one-quarter administrator. Finding all this in one person could be difficult. As such, the leader may likely need a lieutenant or two who has strengths to fill in any shortfalls in the above 4-part character profile of the leader.

Purpose
So what should be the purpose or mission of the Progress-creation Department? In a sentence, the purpose of this department is:

The prior text of this article explains the dynamics underlying the realization of this purpose.

Perspective (or Philosophy)
Why is the perspective of the Progress-creation staff important? It's because the perspectives (or assumptions) that we carry determine the conclusions that we make which, in turn, determine the actions that we take. So, counterproductive perspectives result in counterproductive conclusions which result in counterproductive actions. Conversely, productive perspectives result in productive conclusions which result in productive actions.

As regards progress-creation and performance-building, two perspectives reign above all others in terms of generating productive action. They are:

PERSPECTIVE 1: Every instance of lack of performance progress within a company, regardless of type or level, is fundamentally a human performance problem — that is, it's either caused by or sustained by inadequate team member performance.

PREMISE 2: Every instance of repeated or ongoing inadequate team member performance at any given level derives from inadequate team member performance at a higher level.

Virtually all company leaders can swallow the first perspective, but they tend to disgorge the second one as if it were a pill of poison. However, unless both perspectives are embraced and acted upon throughout an enterprise, optimal progress cannot be achieved because the leadership of the enterprise will never reach the conclusions required for generating the actions that are vital to optimal progress-creation — which is the reason why many companies fail to achieve desired amounts of progress and maximal success.

To eliminate any chance of confusion, we now provide an exact definition for performance. As used herein, PERFORMANCE is human action and the outcomes that directly derive from it. So, performance is a measurable, manageable “thing.”

ACTION can be a single activity or a set of related activities, sometimes referred to as behavior. Mental and verbal processes, such as decision-making and conversation, are considered to be forms of activity. “Doing nothing” is also an activity.

An OUTCOME is an object, condition, or situation resulting from human action.

So a particular team member's performance is the Action of that particular team member and the Outcomes that directly derive from that Action.

TO RECAP, every performance problem or instance of inadequate performance progress within a company, regardless of the type or level, is either caused by or sustained by inadequate team member performance (perspective 1). And every instance of ongoing inadequate team member performance at any given level derives from inadequate team member performance at a higher level (perspective 2).

Many managers and executives will reject the second perspective (at least initially) on the grounds that it's incorrect or untrue. Although perspective 2 can be supported with strong logic, we won't do it here because it's beside the point. The issue is not about correctness but, rather, is about productiveness. So the relevant question is: Of all possible operating perspectives, which perspectives are most apt to produce the type of actions that will yield the most effective results?

If the goal of enterprise leadership is to optimize problem-resolution and performance progress, the above two perspectives reign supreme over all others because they are the perspectives that are most apt to generate the type of team member performance (particularly mid- and upper-level leadership performance) that will result in the greatest amount of company-wide performance progress.

Why are these two perspectives vital to achieving optimal productivity and success? It's for the following reasons. Regarding perspective 1: If we assume that this perspective is not correct, we automatically usher in the assumption that the causative or sustaining factors of any given problem could be outside human control. Once we accept the perspective that the causative or sustaining factors for a given condition are outside human control, humans cease to direct their energies toward changing that condition. And once we cease to direct our energies toward changing a particular condition, the chances of it ever being changed are greatly diminished, if not nil.

Regarding perspective 2: If we assume that this particular perspective is not correct, we usher in the assumption that there could be little or no connection between the performance of a leader and the performance of his/her subordinates. Once we accept the perspective that there's little or no connection between the leader's performance and a subordinate's performance, the leader ceases to direct his/her energies toward influencing a subordinate's performance for the better. And once a leader ceases to direct his/her energies toward changing a subordinate's performance, the chances of a subordinate's performance ever improving are greatly diminished, if not nil.

(Interestingly, the assumption that there's little or no connection between a leader's performance and a subordinate's performance also implies that the leader cannot be held responsible for the performance of his/her subordinates, which is probably why some leaders are so quick to assert that perspective 2 is untrue. Of course, if we do assume that perspective 2 is untrue, it further means that the position of the leader is irrelevant and, therefore, expendable — because there's no point in having the position of “leader” if the performance of the person in the leader position has little or no effect on the performance of those who “report” to the leader position!)

Performance Problem Resolution
As previously described, the purpose of the Progress-creation Department is:

To develop and maintain the programs that produce the conditions that result in team members throughout the enterprise achieving desired progress and enjoying it.

As this point we now describe a program that can be very handy in achieving that purpose. This program is an extension of the basic performance-building process described in the Performance-building chapter. This program is the Performance Problem Resolution Process.

As used herein, we define a program as an ordered set of procedures applied by a particular person or group. In this case the “group” is the Progress-creation Department.

This program is for solving serious sporadic, isolated performance problems as they arise. As such, it's applied on an ad hoc or sporadic basis. It could be viewed as a “micro performance-building program.”

The purpose of the Performance Problem Resolution Program is to eliminate isolated instances of repeated inadequate performance. The program involves the following steps by the Progress-creation Department:

1. Confer on a regular basis with department heads relative to the team member performance situation in their department or store.

2. When a situation of repeated inadequate team member performance arises, work with the department head to resolve the problem through implementing the Performance-building Process, which would involve the following steps:

3. Upon completion of steps (a) through (e), review with the department head the results of the performance-building effort.

4. Assuming that desired results have occurred, file a report of what was done (for future reference), and exchange congratulations on a “job well done” with the department head.

5. If desired results failed to occur, review what was done (steps (a) through (d) above) and identify the missing component required to effect desired performance. Install that component into the performance-conditions plan and re-execute the plan.

NOTE: In addition to creating and executing a performance-conditions plan for Desired Performance, it can sometimes be helpful to concurrently implement a motivation-reduction plan relative to the problem performance. This involves shrinking the Upside associated with the undesired performance, which typically involves a (re)structuring of the work experience so that the team member no longer receives positive reinforcement from doing the problem performance. In behavioral psychology this is known as differential reinforcement of alternate behaviors (DRA). The book Performance Management by Aubrey Daniels describes a procedure for applying it.

AN APPROACH TO PROBLEM PERFORMANCE
The subject of “problem performance by team members” is one fraught with conflicting attitudes and opinions. The roots of the conflict derive from varying perceptions of “reality,” particularly “people reality.” As a result, resolution of the conflict by logic is virtually impossible. To avoid a quagmire of endless (and often heated) discussion, avoid getting involved in discussing what's “correct” or “true” regarding modern human nature and human performance. Instead, focus the discussion on what's “optimally productive.” In other words, base discussion and decisions on the answer to the question What premises, attitudes, and programs are most apt to produce the greatest amount of desired performance?

With this in mind, we adopt the premise that every performance problem is solvable with the right performance-building program. Basing our actions on this premise causes us to expend our best efforts at resolving performance problems, which, in turn, creates the optimal likelihood that any given problem will be solved. This, of course, serves the best interests of both the team members and the overall enterprise.

HOWEVER, we allow for the admission that, from time to time, a rare performance problem arises that's outside the bounds of economic feasibility. By that we mean, the resolution of such a problem requires more time, money, and energy than the resolution is worth. Accordingly, the appropriate course of action is to terminate the employment (or, perhaps, switch the job function) of the person delivering the inadequate performance. In short, we should not pursue a particular performance-building effort when the cost of undertaking the effort will exceed the benefit to be derived therefrom. In such instances the enterprise and its team members are better served by directing its limited resources into performance-building opportunities of greater payback potential … which may involve replacing the chronically under-performing team member with someone who doesn't require as much investment of money and time to train and motivate to an acceptable level of performance.