Personal Inventory

The most valuable thing I gained from this course is an increased understanding of distinguishing between treating the core issue of a performance problem and treating the symptoms. Early on, I found it easy to identify what immediately appeared to be wrong and come up with a solution for it. In many instances, my solution wouldn’t have solved the program – it just would have made it appear better for a short time. By analyzing these symptoms to develop an understanding of the core issues at hand, I’ve been able to develop interventions more capable of providing long-term organizational growth.
As a part of this, I believe I’ve done well in developing the following competencies:
1. Write statements of performance intervention outcomes: A lot of my strength in this regard seems to have come from my teaching background. When teaching high school, I obsessed over learning outcomes as a tool to measure my students’ successes and shortcomings. When I began ID work and this class, this experience aided me a lot in crafting outcomes that were measureable and job-specific.

2. Communicate effectively in visual, oral, and written form: This, too, is a benefit from my teaching experience. Having taught English for a long while, I spent a number of years helping other communicate effectively in different manners. The HPT course had helped me take this experience and apply it to communicating the benefits of an intervention, giving me the ability to “sell” my ideas better than I have in the past.

3. Promote performance consulting and human performance improvement as a major approach to achieving desired results in organizations: Coming from a very training-centered organization, my awareness of HPT has definitely changed my approach toward improving organizational performance. The knowledge I’ve gained from this course has already led to me making performance improvement suggestions that aren’t based on training. Long-term, I think this could positively shift my department toward future successes.

4. Capable of involving others (authority figures, knowledgeable individuals) appropriately: One of the most valuable things I’ve gained from this class is an understanding of the importance of collaborating with other individuals to understand performance issues and suggest relevant, needs-based results. Without communicating with these individuals, HPT professionals are at a huge disadvantage.

5. Generous with giving credit to others: Similar to the previous competency, I’ve learned that it’s critical to give credit so that relationships remain intact. As a part of positive collaboration, one should be willing to praise others when they’ve done well and intervene when they may need assistance. 

Likewise, I still have work to do on these ones:

1. Analyze the structures of jobs, tasks, and content: I don’t mean to say that I’m terrible with this one entirely, but while conducting analyses during this course, I’ve sometimes struggled to understand what all I must examine as a part of my work. Considering the variety of jobs and tasks that will be impacted by a performance intervention is a huge undertaking, and one that I hope to be continually mindful of moving forward. Continued experience with this will help, as will a willingness to step back and analyze myself during each step of the process.

2. Demonstrate appropriate interpersonal, group-process, and consulting skills: I am sometimes quick to think that, since I am the one analyzing performance, what I say goes. While I don’t often express these feelings, they sometimes creep up in my mind and create frustration. Moving forward, I intend to be increasingly collaborative with individuals to develop a continued understanding that there are a number of pieces that must fit together in order for a performance intervention to be successful, and that many of those are outside of my control.

3. Cause-conscious, not solution-oriented: As I stated earlier, I initially found it easy to simply dive into solutions without a lot of regard for their causes. In many ways, early on, I looked at the symptoms and not the core issue. While I’ve come a long way in this regard, I’d like to continually improve by continuing to analyze performance problems and make recommendations. By collaborating with others in this regard, I believe I will have the tools and feedback I need to be successful in this continued endeavor.

4. Sensitive of the need to verify perceptions: Somewhat similar to the last competency, I sometimes struggle with double- and triple-checking my perceptions. This isn’t always the case, and I’ve gotten better with it, but, moving forward in my practice, I think it would be wise to make this a part of my routine: to always check everything twice (or three times) and to not move forward until I have done so.

5. Able to sort out priorities: As a big fan of instructional technology, it’s easy for me to be tempted to always suggest technology-based solutions. While there are situations where such solutions are appropriate, in a number of instances, there are more affordable options that, more importantly, better address the issue at hand. Moving forward, I would like to receive more information or training on some non-technology based solutions in practice.  

Professionally, I’d like to incorporate my HPT work into my current position on a widespread basis. My current company is very training-oriented and is consistently looking at training as the sole solution. The tools I’ve been equipped with in this class have really broadened my understanding of what we can do as an organization to better increase performance and solve some of our existing issues. I hope to use what I’ve learned to analyze these issues and develop non-training solutions for them.