People performance and potential model

a simple group-profiling matrix tool for teams and organizations

This elegant and simple model has been around in various forms for many years. Its precise originsare not clear. The model appears in different formats, with different terminology - and no doubt different titles of the model itself - although by implication the basic structure is constant, relying on a four-part 2 x 2 matrix, which is a common method of classification in management and beyond.

See also the pdf diagram, based on an interpretation kindly provided by John Addy, 2004.

The purpose of the model is to enable a simple assessment and representation of the mixture of types (according to potential and performance) within any work group or team, but it is a relatively blunt instrument and is neither designed nor recommended for detailed individual staff assessment.

The model provides a quick view or perspective of a group profile that often is elusive in complex human resources audits, and can assist in making investment decisions, although this apparently early purpose of the model should be approached with care given the more sophisticated expectations and considerations of modern organizational management.

It is therefore ideal for presentations and for reflecting a complex situation using a simple graphic. The model is not for individual counselling and development, other than for reference and interest alongside more accurate and objective individual assessment tools and processes.

The 'people potential performance model' (or whatever else it might be called) is especially useful in illustrating clearly and broadly the mix or profile of quite large groups of people within a human resources or organizational planning context. It's also helpful in understanding, determining, and explaining the different treatment that is appropriate for different categories of people with a group, according to local definitions and implications.

The model can also be used to show an ideal mix, and an actual mix, and thereby highlight the gapor difference, from an overall strategic viewpoint.

It can be a useful supplementary tool or reference point alongside more detailed and complexappraisals and training needs analysis processes.

The model also has a good training and educational value, which is why it's featured here. It can help managers and leaders to understand that people are different, have different needs, and can be helped in different ways and directions, appropriate to their situation.

people potential performance model

Bear in mind that the descriptive terminology can be adapted to suit the situation and it is likely that the terms below have been adapted from those used when the model was first defined. The notes in each quadrant are just a few examples of the sort of different responses and actions appropriate for each type.

	low potential	high potential
high performance	backbone >  high performance low potential Acknowledge effort and contribution. Utilize as coaches and mentors. Look for each person's hidden high potential, undiscovered passions, etc., and offer new challenges and responsibilities as appropriate, so these people too can be stars, to any extent they are comfortable.	stars  high performance high potential Agree challenging stretching work, projects, career development, responsibilities, or these people are likely to leave. Give appropriately stretching coaching, mentoring, training. Explore and encourage leadership and role-model opportunities, to set and raise standards of other staff.
low performance	icebergs ^ or >  low performance low potential Counsel, build trust, understand issues. Identify hidden potential. Facilitate more fitting roles, direction, purpose, opportunities, etc., linked with and perhaps dependent on performance improvement. Failing this, assist or enable move out of organization if best for all concerned.	problem children ^  low performance high potential Confirm and acknowledge potential. Counsel, build trust, understand issues. Explore and agree ways to utilize and develop identified potential via fitting tasks and responsibilities, linked with and perhaps dependent on performance improvement. Explore attachment to backbone or star mentors and coaches.

See the origins notes below about referencing the 'people performance potential model' (or whatever else it might be called). Precise origins are not certain. If you have information or evidence for the origins of this model please let me know.

using the 'people performance potential' model

The model can be used both to visualize or represent the ideal or required staffing profile of a group or organization, and separately, the actual staffing profile, according to the categories in the model, and thereby to see graphically and quickly the difference or gap between the two, i.e., in terms of staff mix, 'what mix do we need' versus 'what mix do we have'?

As such it is a powerful tool for reflecting, seeing a complex picture simply and quickly, and therefore for presentation too.

Since the model enables very quick easy illustration or demonstration of a complex set of people-related factors that are highly significant for organizational performance and development, the tool is very useful for executives and executive discussions, presentations, reports and planning documents, etc.

While the model provides a quick simple easily-understood snapshot, remember it is not in itself a sophisticated or precise instrument for individual assessment.

Scoring questionnaries can be developed and used (see the example questionnaire/templete for the performance/potential matrix below), or data may be used from performance appraisals and other assessment tools, however the model will always be a broad indicator and is not recommended ever to be used in isolation to make important decisions about people'd development and future careers.

As such, care must be taken when matching people to the categories. Ensure this is done consistently, and also ensure that appropriate supporting assessment methods are utilized for detailed action planning and to support discussions with individuals.

As with any assessment indicator, people have a right to see how they have been graded, and to be involved in the process at all stages. Accordingly great sensitivity is required when explaining the system, and efforts shopuld be made to temper potential disappointments with encouragements and opportunities to improve, with support as appropriate.

When using the model it is important to state any the assumptions, and the necessary criteria and measurement methods used in populating the categories.

You can adapt the model to suit your own situation, notably the terminology for the two axes and each quadrant, and also the criteria and definitions applicable to each quadrant.

If using a scoring system, the total scores for Performance and Potential equate to one of the four quadrant positions in the People-Performance-Potential Matrix. Scoring may also enable more detailed 'mapping' of positions of people within quadrants according to actual scores. Beware however of trying to make the model and assessment of people be overly sophisticated and detailed. It is a simple tool. Try to keep its usage simple and understandable too.

questionnaire for positioning people in the performance/potential matrix model

Here is a simple quick example of a questionnaire which can be used to match people to categories in the 'People-Performance-Potential Matrix', described above. It's an example. You can adapt it, simplify or expand it, according to your own situation.

It is very important that:

• assessments and scoring of people's performance and potential is conducted in a consistent and fair way, and
• explanations and transparency of the process are managed sensitively and positively - everyone can be developed.

'people performance potential matrix model' questionnaire - template/example Agree a score for each of these factors with each employee (using evidence and/or discussion as appropriate). Where factors are irrelevant remove them and adjust high/low total interpretation accordingly:
Scoring scale: 1 - 4. Scoring key: 1= needs improving, 2 = satisfactory, 3 = good, 4 = excellent. (Interpretation for model positioning: 1-2 = low, 3-4 = high.)	Score  (1-4)
1. Performance (factors relating to current job role - assess in detail as required, or import from appraisal/other assessment system)
1.1 Job skills
1.2 Job/product/technical knowledge
1.3 Attitude and behaviour (US-English: behavior)
1.4 Commitment and flexibility
1.5 Effectiveness and results (mindful of obstacles, mitigation, situation)
1.6 Working relationships
Performance total (up to and including 12 = low; 13 and over = high)
2. Potential (is there clear evidence of existing or developing [factors stated below] required beyond current role? N.B. scoring refers to evidenced potential, not to current level.)
2.1 Capabilities
2.2 Knowledge
2.3 Attitude/behaviour
2.4 Commitment and flexibility
2.5 Strategic awareness and effectiveness
2.6 Working relationships
Potential total (up to and including 12 = low; 13 and over = high)
The total scores for Performance and Potential equate to one of the four quadrant positions in the People-Performance-Potential Matrix. Conversion of scores to a matrix quadrant may simply be to a quandrant according to high or low classification, or may instead enable more detailed 'mapping' of positions within quadrants according to actual scores.
© Alan Chapman, Businessballs.com, 2013 - see model and explanation at www.businessballs.com/people_performance_potential_model.htm

N.B. The scoring rationale used in the questionnaire template above assumes that a grading of 'satisfactory' does not represent 'high' performance or potential. If your own organizational situation considers 'satisfactory' as a 'high' level of performance or potential then amend the scoring terminology accordingly.

origins of the people performance potential model

In terms of referencing the best I can suggest is that it is: Variously attributed to/claimed/adapted by Boston Consulting Group, George Odiome, Jack Welch, Doug Stewart, and Nicholas Barnes, c.1970-1996. The pdf diagram is based on an interpretation by John Addy, 2004.

If you have information or evidence of origins, or observations about the application of this model, please send them.

Since publishing the model as a pdf diagram on the website in 2004 (based on an interpretation initially provided to me by John Addy, who was also unsure of its origins) I have received the following suggestions:

Lori M Beevers suggested (Sept 2005) that the model appeared in a book by George Odiome in the 1970's and was credited to the Boston Consulting Group. The terminology was as above, except for these differences, which she suggested might have been updated to be less insulting, which seems a very reasonable observation: 'icebergs' = 'deadwood'; 'backbone' = 'workhorses'; and 'problem children' = 'question marks'. In other respects the model and its basic meanings were as above.

Chris Page informed me (Jan 2007) that he had seen a simplified version of the model attributed to Jack Welch (General Electric Company, business writer/guru). The names of the four quadrants were not featured, and in what would arguably be typical Welch no-nonsense fashion, the recommended action associated with the 'low potential - low performance' category was to question why these people remain on the payroll. Apparently in this version of the model, 'potential' was extended to 'potential to do a bigger job', which is (in my view) a far narrower meaning and by implication ignores utterly one of the main points of the model: that many people thought to have no potential actually have tremendous potential that has neither been uncovered or utilized, which is why they are not performing well.

Tony Thacker informed me (Feb 2007): "Re. people performance model... Doug Stewart, in The Power of People Skills, p185, John Wiley, ISBN 0-471-01187-8, uses a somewhat similar quadrant model, but using skill and motivation as the two axes rather than performance and potential..."

Dr Nicholas Barnes informed me (also Feb 2007): "Re. people performance model... I can make a claim to have invented it with my boss at the time (Brian Lewis) when we were working in HR for a Danish (by registration) company called Borealis sometime around 1996. We used it once a year when we did succession and experience planning and was used based on peoples performance reviews. As it was used all over Europe (at least 9 countries) by our HROD staff it would certainly have leaked out into the wider world via local consultants as we found it very useful and presumably so would they..."

Tony Perryman provided the following helpful information, which supports the view that the original terminology was Deadwood, Workhorses, Problem Children and Rising Stars, (July 2007): "You will find a full explanation of this model in the Havard Business Review - around the mid to late eighties. The authors developed a more sophisticated view than in your explanation. They suggest that as a businessman the choice of where to invest is determined on where the best return is to be found, which should be so with people. So Rising Stars are where to invest. Workhorses: maintenance investment or for motivation purposes; Problem Children: improve technical capability or knowledge; and Deadwood: no investment unless to be moved into a more appropriate role. I have been using this model since the early nineties, however because line managers become jittery about terms like deadwood, I just use A, B, C and D as a classification and sometimes D is the rising star!

B - Workhorses Individuals who produce effectively, however they have reached their level of competency.	A - Rising Stars  Individuals who have real potential for the future and are high performers.	hi  p  e  r  f  o  r  m  a  n  c  e  lo
D - Deadwood Individuals who have no potential and perform poorly. They are in the wrong role.	C - Problem Children Individuals who have potential but are not performing in their role. This may be because they are newly promoted.
low          potential          high

This simple method helps dictate where scare development resources should be spent:

• A - Rising Stars - Most investment. This is where the business is going to get the best return on there investment. Invest sufficient to keep engaged and grow for the future.
• B - Workhorses - Minimal investment. Invest only to keep motivated or to upgrade skills.
• C - Problem Children - Targeted investment. Action plan which includes giving them technical skills to perform at the required level. Any investment will only occur after full analyses of an individual’s motivation to move from where they are currently. If they do not respond move to another role or exit business.
• D - Deadwood - No investment. Action plan to either find a more appropriate role or exit business. "

(With thanks to Tony Perryman, July 2007)

Michael Burgess wrote (July 2007): "My understanding of the Productivity Potential model origins has always been that it was from The Boston Consulting Group (Boston Matrix) used to evaluate products in terms of their market share and their potential for market growth. It's self-explanatory how this applies to products and might go some way to explaining the rather harsh terminology when it was adapted by George Odiorne to describe employee performance."

Cash Cow  'milk' - maintain	Star  'shine' - develop	hi  m  a  r  k  e  t  s  h  a  r  e  lo
Dog  'shoot' - exit/divest	Problem Child  fix or divest
low         market growth or potential         high

(Thanks Michael Burgess, July 2007. See the detailed explanation of the 'Boston Matrix' in the business planning section.)

Jeffrey Cole wrote (February 2008): "... In 1987 I saw this [people-performance matrix model] in a USMC leadership training manual from, I believe 1967, which is probably still in the library either at Camp Kinser, Okinawa Japan, or at the Combat Service Support Detachment at Takegahara Garrison (Gotemba prefecture), Japan. Given that this was in a Government training manual I believe that would indicate that the diagram is probably older than the 1970s. The labels on that diagram did not have cutesy names, it was simply 'capability to learn' and 'willingness to perform' and the quadrants reflected low/high for each attribute. The mentoring recommendations based on the diagram were essentially (for the axes - willingness to perform / capability to learn):

high/high : coach 
high/low: teach 
low/high: father (discipline) 
low/low: remove as quickly as possible.

teach  this person	coach  this person	high     willingness  to  perform  low
remove  this person	'father' (discipline)  this person
low          capability to learn          high

(Diagram interpretation based on the above description provided by J Cole.)

If you have details, evidence or observations about the origins and application of the People-Performance model please send them.

authorship/referencing

This model has uncertain origins, being variously claimed by and/or attributed to the Boston Consulting Group, George Odiome, Jack Welch, Doug Stewart, and Nicholas Barnes, among others. The pdf diagram is based on an interpretation by John Addy, 2004. Clarification and evidence relating to authorship, ownership and origins are welcome.

© Alan Chapman 2007-2013

Customer Experience Improvement is a Team Sport

A company is a team, funded by customers. A company is expected by customers to operate as "one". Nobody likes to hear evidence that the company is not a real team: "That's handled by X" or "We don't have access to Y". And even worse, recurrence of an issue that customers have already voiced is evidence of disrespect of their precious time and funding.

This is why cross-functional collaboration in acting on voice-of-the-customer (VoC) is paramount to achieving customer experience ROI (CX ROI). Company-wide employee engagement in customer experience improvement is an absolute must!

Employee Engagement Urgency
Should you wait to improve customer experience (CX) cross-functionally? No! Your initial pilot of anything you start off with in managing CX should include employee engagement. Otherwise, it will be a long time before you can claim sustainable business results from CX management. Widespread and early employee engagement in systematic CX improvement has these advantages:

• Build goodwill with customers, especially those who have graciously provided feedback to you.
• Fast-track cost reductions as you minimize wasted time, resources, and energy in things that irk customers.
• Build employee morale as your company's alignment with customers becomes more apparent.
• Reap ROI from investments in VoC, CRM, customer care, etc.

Systematic CX improvement efforts are essential to achieving CX excellence that customers reward. A good analogy is the desire to look great in your swimming suit: you can collect data about how others view you now, you can advertise how you want to be perceived, and you can follow-up with individuals who give you feedback — but ultimately, you'll have to do the actual work required to look great in your swimming suit. A pill or a quick diet or occasional gym visit won't do the trick. It will take concerted effort to monitor the positives and negatives in your eating and exercising if you really want to reach your goal. The same principles hold true for CX!

Success Factors
In our 4-year study of CX practices, companies that presented VoC to all employees and expected action by owners of CX key drivers tended to have stronger business results tied to CX efforts. Yet, less than half of companies are making these practices an essential part of their CX strategy.

Advantages abound for sharing VoC with everyone, and expecting every department to manage their respective ripple effect on CX. These practices are among the best ways to instill customer-centric culture, create shared vision for CX, reduce costs, and stimulate innovation that creates mutual value for the company and customers.

Look for patterns across all of your customer intelligence, and prioritize CX improvement areas by customer lifetime value. These practices have strong motivational value.

Systemic Customer Experience Improvement
Most customer surveys have closed-loop case management, where an action alert is generated when a respondent voices a concern or complaint, and managers are committed to following up with the respondent within a specific time period. This practice has been common in satisfaction and experience surveys since the early 1990s. As surveys are a representative sample of the buying population, it's important to think of these action alerts as early warning signals. It's necessary to look for the patterns among these signals and address them systemically so that your entire buying population is spared of repeated concerns.

"Systemic" means "affecting the entire organism or body". This is a critical principle for CX excellence, as we noted: customers think of a company as "one". Think of those pharmaceutical ads with extensive disclosures of the potential downsides of the product. If we were fully honest about the realities of the customer experience, ads for any product might include something like: "Get yours now for $9.99 … Side effects may include extensive waiting time for delivery, incomplete usage instructions, unexpected urgency to contact customer service, confusing billing paperwork, information in disparate systems, …". You get the picture.

Customer experience is more than a product. And more than an interaction. Customer experience is "all interactions people have with or about a solution: messages, people, processes, policies, prices, products, and services." And everyone in the company has a hand in how well these CX components play out for customers.

Cross-Functional Teams Improve Customer Experience
When I led CX improvement at Applied Materials, company-wide employee engagement was key to our CX strategy from the beginning. We provided each account team, business unit, and functional area with their cut of the customer survey results, to minimize finger-pointing and maximize ownership of customer feedback. We reviewed the company-wide survey results to show the context of the organization's situation, and spent time with a cross-functional team in each organization discussing the interpretation of the feedback. Our mantra was "Good news is no news, no news is bad news, bad news is good news."

The cross-functional teams read through customer verbatim comments related to the biggest bad-news topics. Then they worked together to ask "why" five times, in order to identify the root causes of what customers were experiencing. The teams then created action items to address each root cause. And they identified a metric that would track the progress of action item execution.

We treated this metric as a leading indicator of future customer feedback. If we had correctly identified the root causes, and if we successfully eradicated or minimized the root issues, we could expect future customer perceptions to improve — and future buying behavior and recommendations to increase accordingly.

Our CX governance team oversaw all the plans so that synergies could be developed among teams with similar goals. This was very important for systems thinking and nurturing cross-organizational collaboration.

Accountability was emphasized by publishing teams' action plan progress company-wide for quarterly review side-by-side with our financials, as part of executives' preparation for industry analyst calls. Motivation was accentuated by placing significant weighting on action plan metrics in the executive incentive plan, and by providing widespread visibility to achievements through a self-reporting team recognition program.

CX ROI
Our 4-year study of CX practices revealed strong emphases on VoC and customer engagement — and relatively weak "middleware": systemic customer experience improvement and innovation. We call it middleware, because VoC informs CX improvement and innovation, and customer engagement is earned by CX improvement and innovation. ROI on VoC and customer engagement is dependent upon the middleware.

The CX ROI building-blocks model shows this as a left-right flow of CX activities in tandem. All of the building-blocks are needed simultaneously in order to maximize CX excellence and ROI.

Stepping stones within the Improvement of Customer Experience building-block include:

• Engage everyone in VoC actions: present VoC comments to everyone and expect everyone's action on key drivers.
• Resolve & prevent customer pain systematically: use root cause analysis, formal complaint management, quality tools, organizational learning, and systematic prevention and communication.
• Enable customer-focused daily work: empower employees by helping them use CX excellence criteria in their decision-making.

Dozens of tools are available to help deploy these stepping stones. Most are quality tools that are learned through six sigma and lean training. They include Pareto chart, force-field analysis, activity network diagrams, and so forth.

Make continual improvement of CX a way of life in your company. As customers' pressures and interests evolve, your company needs to readily adapt — and ideally, anticipate and prevent issues from occurring in the first place. The cost savings are likely to be quite significant, and the unity across your company may propel productivity. Systemic CX improvement is the key ingredient in the recipe for building trust, which organically encourages customers to be raving fans of your company.

This article is 7th in a 10-part series providing glimpses into the ClearCX^TM customer experience maturity assessment.

1. Customer Experience Maturity Roadmap
2. Customer Experience Strategy is Uncommon
3. Customer-Centricity is Controversial
4. Comments are Customer Experience Gold
5. Customer Experience Intelligence Inspires Innovation
6. Customer Lifetime Value Prioritizes Customer Experience Management
7. Customer Experience Improvement is a Team Sport
8. Customer Experience Innovation Creates Mutual Value
9. Employee Engagement: Living Your Brand Promise
10. Customer Engagement is the Capstone of Customer Experience Management

Metrics for Assessing Human Process on Work Teams

by John W. Bing, Ed.D.

Management has been defined simply as "getting things done through others."1 Managing and leading complex organizations is challenging, at least in part because the most utilized tools to assess management's approaches are end-point financial measures. Reviewing quarterly profit/loss statements as a guide to management's skills is a bit like measuring a doctor's skills by the apparent health of the patient rather than reviewing the full set of analytic results which more effectively predict health or illness. We know too well that reliance on short-term profit results is no certain indicator of the long-term health of a company. We need other measures, measures that assess both the application of specific managerial approaches and policies in addition to the output measures of financial returns. In so doing, we increase the opportunities open to managers to understand and improve the effects of their policies and approaches.

I suggest in this article that measurement and monitoring of work teams over time is a crucial way for organizational leaders to both support improved team performance and to measure, through the aggregation of human performance metrics on a digital dashboard, changes in team performance and, in turn, to relate these measures to bottom line, financial changes.

CHARACTERISTICS OF WORK TEAMS

Work teams are the backbone of contemporary work life. Executive teams run corporations. Project teams create new products and services; matrix teams are involved in the development of everything from pharmaceuticals to the delivery of services in consulting firms and charitable agencies. Marketing and sales teams deliver products and services to customers. Except in the most traditional of organizations, for example sometimes in governmental organizations in which highly structured departments remain, teams are essential to the way organizations carry out their work.

Global Teams are a special genre of teams. Most of the examples in this article are drawn from global teams. The notion of global teams would have been thought at best unlikely until the last two decades. Within that time, communications infrastructures began to provide efficient support for synchronous and asynchronous contacts between distant employees, and corporations began to realign their workflow through those individuals and those geographical areas most likely to increase efficiencies and productivity. Thus, virtual teams and global teams were created to allow companies to improve competitive advantage. Such teams, however, provide managerial challenges, as the imperative to "get work done through others" is different when the "others" are not found around the proverbial water cooler but are embodied in bits and bytes on computers and telephone exchanges. With increasing distance between team members, it is much more difficult to build trust, which underpins successful teams.2

Cultural and linguistic differences also play significant roles in mediating communications on global teams. Although the business of most global teams is conducted in English, there is typically more than one language natively spoken by members of a global team. These members may have more difficulty expressing themselves in spoken or written English than do their native-English-speaking colleagues.

Cultural differences are more subtle intermediaries. In one project monitored by ITAP International involving a pharmaceutical team located both in the United States and in Spain, there were numerous complaints from the American team members because their Spanish colleagues copied e-mail messages to their bosses, which the Americans perceived as undermining forthright communications. In a meeting convened to work through issues uncovered in measurements of team process,3 the Spanish members of the team asserted that it was their responsibility to inform their supervisors of the progress made by their team; to do otherwise would be negligent.

Dutch pioneer Geert Hofstede measured cultural differences through a five-dimensional system.4 The dimensional set which emerged from his research - Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism/Collectivism, Masculinity/Femininity, and Long/Short-Term Orientation - is the most researched body of quantitative crosscultural research in the literature. The Spanish scores for one of these dimensions, Power Distance, a measure in part of "subordinates' fear of disagreeing with superiors and of superiors' actual decision-making styles,"5 are significantly higher than those for the United States. That specific difference was the root cause of a number of communications problems within this team. As another example of Power Distance issues, the American department head, who supervised the team, thought that the Spanish supervisor controlled the Spanish contingent too tightly; the two leaders had a number of meetings before this issue was at least understood, if not resolved. In circumstances in which one culture dominates another by virtue of the authority of the home company, such differences are often hidden or suppressed but no less significant and are surfaced through the application of process metrics or, less fortuitously, subsequent team malfunctions.

MEASURING TEAMS

Teams are a bit like people in their complexity and types; and although progress has been made in measuring individuals with respect to their type, development and capabilities, the science of team metrics is in its infancy. This is even more notable in that teams could well be natural units by which top management might most efficiently determine the effectiveness of their policies and leadership; yet management has rarely attempted such measures. Reorganizations and restructurings are common; yet how many have been implemented in which appropriate pre- and postmeasures have been taken to determine the specific areas that require redevelopment and restructuring and most important whether such efforts have achieved desired results?

Indeed, much of the reorganization and restructuring of organizations, which is enormously expensive in terms of time and other resources, might well have been avoided had diagnosis of problems been undertaken and smaller-scale changes made. In addition, in the contemporary organization, teams are perhaps the most appropriate unit around which to make complex and ongoing measures of both human process and productivity. As Jones and Moffett write, "an effective measurement system gives work teams the same kind of business data once used only to manage entire organizations.6

Lacking such measures, it seems quixotic at best and malpractice at worst for management to reorganize work units.

The lack of team output measures also accounts for the difficulties that management has in rewarding teams. Although we have 360-degree measurement (typically in Western corporations) to measure the development of managers, very few team measures exist to support rewards systems for teams. Most team rewards are based on individual assessments rather than team effectiveness.

Management's inattentiveness to such matters is, I believe, a constraint on improving the capacity of complex organizations to become more effective as learning organizations. For if management is not focusing on measuring the effectiveness and productivity of their organizations beyond financial measures, it is difficult to determine which parts of the organization are functioning well, and which are not, beyond a gut reaction. Such measures have the additional value of providing specific diagnostics, and therefore appropriate interventions, when teams falter.

TYPES OF MEASURES

There are two types of team measures to be discussed here, those of team process and those of team output or team productivity.

Productivity Measures

Some types of teams lend themselves to such measures more easily than others, and some measures are more typically applied than others. For example, a top management team might be measured appropriately by shareholders by means of the general productivity of the company in terms of its profit or loss over time; however, at the same time, measurements of the company as a learning organization are also important indicators of the capability of the company to maintain or increase productivity, and these are more difficult to make. At the shop floor level, measures are usually easier and can be made in terms of the number of units produced at specific levels of quality by work teams as well as the safety record of the unit over time; absenteeism, and so on.

Jones and Moffett, in a case study on measurement on work teams, list four common measures on such teams: productivity, quality, cycle time, and on-time delivery. They then note that:

To establish ownership, teams customize their measurement system in four ways. First, they can add a measure of their choosing that reflects the team strategy. Second, within limits they can determine the weighted importance of the measures to reflect their own thinking about strategy. Third, within limits they can set their own performance standards for each measure. Fourth, in some cases they can influence how a measure is calculated so that it comes more under their control.7

However, measurement often stops at the factory level.

While it may be more difficult to define appropriate metrics, various human resources department teams could be measured on the length of time required to recruit specific positions matched with supervisor satisfaction of the successful candidates and the costs involved; on the cost of payroll per employee; and training, by supervisor satisfaction with skills provided to subordinates.

Human Process Measures

Human process measures are likely to be precursors to productivity changes. Why? If communications fail or are marginal on a team, it is likely that productivity drops will not be far behind. If objectives are not clear, then how can a team reach them? If roles and responsibilities are muddy, how can the team efficiently carry out its work? If trust is lacking, how can a team work together? An American general who commanded troops in the first Gulf War commented: "We had an unusually strong team, and trust was a major factor.... You need people schooled and trained in their own type of warfare, and then you need trust in each other."8

Although there is face validity to the above statements, management is often reluctant to carry out measures to determine the degree of comparative effectiveness in these basic areas. In such resistance, there may be many missed opportunities.

COMPARING HUMAN PROCESS WITH OUTPUT ON TEAMS

Although this article is not focused on the measurement of team productivity, or outputs, it is important that human process metrics be combined with team output measures to correlate how changes in team human processes lead to changes in output. Of course, although finding of correlations do not prove causation, repeated correlations over time and with different teams will eventually build a solid base for viewing process measures and interventions as fundamental to improving team productivity.

A decade ago, a Swiss-based pharmaceutical company asked ITAP International to develop a method for measuring process performance on three global teams. The teams were composed of scientists from Europe, the Americas and Japan. They met four times over a period of two years, and continued their team responsibilities during the intervening periods. Their purpose was to create procedures to reduce research and development time in three drug delivery areas: oral, skin and subdermal. The teams were tasked with similar assignments and because the composition of the teams was similar, they became ideal candidates for studying differences in human processes on global teams and comparing results between the three teams.

A questionnaire was developed to measure human process on these teams, and was administered six times over the two-year period that these teams met together. At the end of the two years, specific questions from this questionnaire, now called the Global Team Process Questionnaire™ (GTPQ) were compared with peer rankings provided by the participants. These correlated positively; in other words, the highest-peer ranked team also had the highest GTPQ results on the questions tested.9

In Figures 1 and 2, process questions are correlated with the peer-ranked productivity of each team. In Figure 1, team objectives were compared with quality of output; in Figure 2, perceived communications levels were compared with peer-ranked outputs. In both cases, there were straight-line correlations between process and output.

Figure 1. Team Objectives vs. Quality of Output.

Figure 2. Perceived Communications Levels.

Team Process Examples

Let's review examples of measurement of human process on teams. The teams listed were all (except in one case) measured by the Global Team Process Questionnaire™, mentioned above, which has been construct-validated dimensionally, and which has proven reliable in repeated applications.10

The following examples are all taken from assessments of teams within the pharmaceutical industry. This industry makes extensive use of global teams in basic research, statistical analysis, product development, clinical development, regulatory, operations, and marketing and sales. During various stages of drug development and testing, many of these functional areas are representing on cross-functional coordinating teams supported by single-function teams. The functional teams are able to support a number of coordinating teams. Many of these teams may have member representation from more than one country.

FAILING TO APPROPRIATELY CHARTER A TEAM

One of the most important factors in a team's success is the initial chartering of a team. Chartering is, essentially, providing the internal and external objectives and structure for newly created teams and providing team members with an understanding of their roles and responsibilities. If this step is not appropriately provided, many problems can develop in the future activities of the team.

Figure 3 is the executive summary for a team that had not been appropriately chartered. The executive summary contains five dimensions (in a domestic version of the GTPQ, which has an additional dimension, Culture and Language).11 The domestic version is called the Organizational Team Process Questionnaire™ or OTPQ. Note that in all five dimensions this team lags the pharmaceutical industry averages that we maintain.12 In this summary, 1 is the "best" score and 6 the "worst," so the lower the score the better the outcome.

Figure 3. Executive Summary for an Inappropriately Chartered Team.

Figure 4 is a spidergram, in which each letter on the diagram represents a team member's score for this specific question - "Are the objectives of your team clear?" Only one of the nine team members indicated an understanding of the objectives; the remaining eight did not. This is another symptom of failed chartering and indicates that the team must go through a chartering process if it is to form the basis for teamwork.

Figure 4. A Spidergram.

ADDITION OF NEW MEMBERS INTO AN EXISTING TEAM

Over time, productive teams develop a sense of trust and a common approach to work, which can be disrupted when members transfer out or in. The larger the percentage of team members lost or gained, the larger the consequence.

Figure 5 shows data on four questions taken after the induction of 11 new members and a new team leader (with only three prior members remaining). All four questions show a distinct difference in perspective between the old team members and new members on the issues of team leadership, clarity of objectives, communications and trust. (In this table, 1 = best possible score; 6 = worst possible score). Here is clearly a case in which, based on the data, a new team leader combined with a large influx of new members requires a team rechartering effort. Otherwise, the old members will remain a disaffected group within the larger team.

Figure 5. Team Scores after Induction of New Team Members and Leader

Question	Average Score All Team Members	Average Score Old Members	Average Score New Members	Difference
Effectiveness of team leadership	2.50	3.33	2.22	-1.11
Clarity of Objectives	2.67	3.33	2.44	-0.89
Communications	3.00	3.67	2.78	-0.89
Trust	3.00	3.67	2.78	-0.89

DEGREE OF MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

Management support is an external but powerful force that can either buttress or retard the productivity of teams. Figure 6 is a comparison of two teams, one with perceived management support, and one without such support.

The top spidergram is tight, indicating a team that acknowledges and appreciates management support. The diagram on the bottom shows a team that as a whole believes that management support is lacking, although there are strong differences of opinion. In an intervention based on this data, a facilitator would probe the team for the reasons behind the perceived ambivalence of management support. Management, in turn, would have data indicating that their support was either not communicated or not sufficiently provided.

Figure 6. Comparison of Teams With and Without Management Support.

THE EFFECT OF MERGERS ON TEAMS

There are other outside influences on teams. In an early version of this measuring instrument, three teams were tested over six iterations on a variety of team process issues. On the first five iterations, there were changes in the process effectiveness of the teams, although team B was clearly the leader overall. However, on the sixth iteration, all three teams fell (see Figure 7). At first, we were puzzled. We had expected that our interventions would improve team process and performance. Were our interventions faulty? Then we realized that the steep decline in all three teams was caused by the effects of a merger with a larger pharmaceutical company, announced just after the fifth iteration of the questionnaire had been administered. As is often the case in mergers, team members expressed concern for their jobs and positions within the smaller firm with which they were associated. This provided support for the notion that the metrics were reflecting the impact of "real world" events.13

Figure 7. Effects of Mergers on Teams.

KEEPING A TEAM ON TRACK

A corporate leadership team, which had consistently improved over four iterations, had a noticeable fall-off in the fifth iteration GTPQ results. At a team meeting, a facilitator helped the team discuss the issues that had the most marked negative responses and the biggest drop from the previous iteration (see Figure 8). The team was then able to identify common themes - direction, ownership, deployment, communication and cooperation - which they were then able to weave into the strategic planning discussions held throughout the remainder of their off-site meeting. The example in Figure 8, of a specific question from the GTPQ, was but one question of a total of 28. However, the aggregated team results showed the same fall-off in human process effectiveness for this team. Again, this illustrates both the kind of results obtained as well as how the information can be used to quickly check performance declines.

Figure 8. A Specific Question from the GTPQ.

CONCLUSION

Process and outputs are inextricably linked on teams.14 Future research will indicate whether human process measures can forecast productivity changes or whether these factors are correlated in other ways. In either case, metrics that allow managers to drill down to specific problems with processes on teams will allow interventions in the most timely and efficient manner, and thus improve or maintain superior team performance.

Similarly, when aggregating and comparing collective measurements from many teams, for example as part of digital dashboards, managers will be able to look at both process changes on individual teams as well as cumulative data for departments and divisions.

This will lead to improvements at the individual team level, as well as cumulative changes across teams as a way of determining management performances. This represents an alternative to reorganizing departments or companies without pre- and post-data in the hope that such changes will improve financial performance. Large scale change is not always beneficial, although it is sometimes necessary for strategic business purposes. Knowing the difference between change for its own sake and change for a specific set of objectives may save companies both time and money and increase shareholder value.

ENDNOTES

1 Hofstede, Geert. "Business Cultures" in UNESCO Courier, April 1994, V. 47, p. 12.
2 Asherman, Ira; Bing, John W., and Laroche, Lionel, "Building Trust Across Cultural Boundaries" originally published in Regulatory Affairs Forum and available online here.
3 The metrics approach used in the cases illustrated in this article were provided through the Global Team Process Questionnaire™, created and utilized by ITAP International.
4 The Hofstede cultural data has been taken from Geert Hofstede, Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations across Nations, Second Edition. Sage Publications, 2001.
5 Hofstede, page 79.
6 Jones, Steve, and Moffett, Richard G., "Measurement and Feedback Systems for Teams," in Sundstrom, Eric, and Associates, Supporting Work Team Effectiveness: Best Management Practices for Fostering High Performance. Page. 157. Jossey-Bass: 1999.
7 Jones and Moffett, op. cit., p. 159.
8 Quoted in Mathieu, John E, and Day, David V., "Assessing Processes within and Between Organizational Teams: A Nuclear Power Plant Example," in Brannick, Michael T., Salas, Eduardo, and Prince, Carolyn (eds.),Team Performance Assessment and Measurement: Theory, Assessment, and Applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997.
9 Bing, John W. "Developing a Consulting Tool to Measure Process Change on Global Teams: The Global Team Process Questionnaire™" (Page 4), proceedings of the 2001 national conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development and available online here.
10 Bing, op.cit.
11 The dimensions were created based on literature research and factor analysis of questions responses.
12 The database is maintained by ITAP International and is the collection of responses from over 100 teams, many followed through multiple measurements.
13 Bing, op.cit., p. 7.
14 For other examples of the relationship of process and productivity of teams, see Bing, John W., "The Relationship between Process and Performance on Teams".

John Bing is the chairman of ITAP International, a consulting firm with operations in Europe, the U.S. and the Asia Pacific region. His consuiting experience spans the Americas, Europe and Africa and the pharmaceutical, consumer product, information technology industries and United Nations' Agencies. He is the designer of ITAP International's Team Process Questionnaire family of consulting instruments and is developing a new version of the Culture in the Workplace QuestionnaireTM, originally created by Geert Hofstede. He has published papers and provided presentations at numerous professional conferences including the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) and the Academy for Human Resources Development and recently co-edited (with Darren C. Short) a volume entitled "Shaping the Future of HRD" in the Advances in Developing Human Resources series. Mr. Bing was a founding member of SIETAR (the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research). He is a member of the Research to Practice Committee of ASTD and is the recipient of ASTD's International Practitioner of the Year Award. A graduate of Harvard College, Bing received his Ed.D. from the Center for International Education, University of Massachusetts. He speaks Afghan Farsi and is an avid hiker whose goals include hiking to three of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks each summer.

This article originally appeared in the International Association for Human Resource Information ManagementIHRIM Journal, November/December 2004, Vol. VIII, Number 6.