sustainable performance: the new agenda for adding value

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Performance Improvement, vol. 52, no. 4, April 2013©2013 International Society for Performance ImprovementPublished online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/pfi.21338

COMMENTARY

SUSTAINABLE PERFORMANCE: THE NEW AGENDA FOR ADDING VALUE

Guest Editor, Holly Burkett, CPT, PhD

WELCOME TO THIS special issue of Performance Improvement journal! Our intent is to explore the concept of sustainable performance, its relationship with corporate sustainability principles, and its impact on the theory and practice of human performance technology (HPT). Many thanks to our authors for contributing their unique perspectives. Anthony W. Marker makes a case for HPT professionals to promote and model organizational wisdom by adopting viable, sustainable business approaches. Thomas Van Soelen describes how a school district’s use of sustainable per-formance practices has led to exemplary school reform. Brett Watson challenges HPT professionals to integrate technical and industrial work processes with corporate sustainability goals to meet improved, quantifiable performance standards. Jack and Patti Phillips describe a systemic, standardized process for measuring the performance impact of solutions designed to support sustainability goals.

Business practices that promote aspects of sustain-ability—the environment, community relations, labor practices, social responsibility, and others—are not really new. For example, DuPont Corporation’s sustain-ability philosophy dates back to the firm’s history as an explosives manufacturer, more than 200 years ago. The underlying social principle was simple and well suited to the times: “Don’t blow up workers and mind the town well.” It took the same 200 years for DuPont and society at large to develop comparable concerns for the environment.

Current trends suggest that sustainability initiatives are now well integrated into the corporate fabric of a grow-ing number of large and midsized companies. A 2012 survey by the Ernst & Young professional and account-ing firm, in cooperation with GreenBiz Group, shows that interest in corporate sustainability continues to rise, that reporting tools are still evolving, and that both chief

financial officers (CFOs) and employees are emerging as key players in sustainability efforts. In fact, employees are second only to customers as drivers of company sustain-ability initiatives.

So what is sustainability, how does it relate to sustain-able performance, and how can best practices in corporate sustainability influence the practice of HPT? There are many definitions of sustainability including “the capacity to endure.” Performance improvement work is meant to be proactive, future focused, and oriented toward solu-tions and practices that endure and are “sustainable over time” (Van Tiem, Moseley, & Dessinger, 2012). Savitz and Weber (2006) define a sustainable business practice as one that behaves responsibly in terms of its resources and impacts. In a broad sense then, sustainable business prac-tices, like performance improvement practices, involve balancing the interests of multiple stakeholders, both inside and outside the company, and include principles of systems thinking, value-added partnerships, and a focus on results, to name a few. To that end, the following lessons learned from the world of business sustainability are consistent with standards of HPT practice and can be replicated or enhanced by HPT professionals to help position performance improvement practices—as well as organizational outcomes—to be more sustainable; durable; and balanced toward social, environmental, and economic needs.

KNOW YOUR VALUE CHAINSustainable performance, on an operational level, can-not occur without process efficiencies and continual value enhancement. A common mainstream approach to sustainability centers on the idea of lean thinking; this emphasizes business as a process, whereby all activities surrounding the life cycle of products or services are examined for ways to improve the efficiency of the value

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chain. Lean thinking processes, much like performance improvement processes, seek to understand the real value and benefits associated with each product or service, to engage consumers and customers in defining value that is driven by actual rather than arbitrary needs, to minimize waste and resource depletion by eliminating activities that do not add value, and to continually examine and reexamine value during each phase of improvement.

Performance improvement professionals can adapt lean thinking principles to examine how well their perfor-mance improvement processes are integrated and viewed as a sustainable, business process, beyond the life cycle of individual projects or initiatives. The notion that HPT should shift its focus from human to business processes capable of dealing with “high-leverage” variables was also advocated by experts who participated in a survey focused on status, trends, and issues in HPT (Pershing, Lee, & Cheng, 2008).

Professionals who have successfully embedded and sustained a performance improvement focus in their organizations emphasize the need to position HPT pro-cesses as holistic, value-added tools that encompass both financial and programmatic sustainability (the ability to develop and cycle out programs to be responsive to constituencies over time with a steady line of sight to the business and the clients, communities, and the societies they serve). This relates to Kaufman’s (2006) Mega-level planning focus and “societal value-added” mind-set, which involve seeing one’s organization as the vehicle for adding measurable value to a shared society. Values-driven businesses have been shown to do well by doing good (Canter, 2009); values-driven performance improvement processes can also do well by helping orga-nizations do good.

MEASUREMENT IS KEYMeasurable value is key. Heightened interest in measure-ment and metrics, for any business strategy, is driven by a new generation of clients and sponsors who are demand-ing evidence that monetary resources are allocated to programs, processes, and projects that yield the greatest return and payback. Studies show, however, that many well-intended sustainability efforts are limited by internal systems that do not allow companies to effectively mea-sure, track, and optimize their sustainability impacts or to understand and manage the risks of insufficient action. In addition, the most widely used sustainability reporting framework, the global reporting initiative (GRI), includes 146 individual indicators grouped into three categories of the triple bottom line (environmental, social, and eco-nomic), which are not equally relevant to all businesses.

Knowing what to report and how to report pose critical challenges for sustainability champions in any arena.

However, an advantage of the GRI guidelines is that they offer a uniform set of performance indicators that put sustainability reporting on the same plane as finan-cial reporting in terms of rigor, clarity, and influence with investors and chief financial officers (CFOs), who are emerging as key players in sustainability efforts. In much the same manner, CFOs and chief executive officers (CEOs) have emerged as key stakeholders and critical sources of resource and funding support with perfor-mance improvement efforts. Studies show that CFOs and CEOs, across industries, are increasingly seeking credible, evidence-based data that connects performance results to relevant measures of business impact (Phillips & Phillips, 2007). While it is true that multiple departments and processes contribute to business improvement, in both the short and long term, the HPT function must pro-vide legitimate measures of its “financial validity” if it is expected to access management and obtain the “top-level buy-in and partnerships” (Pershing et al., 2008) needed to facilitate and support sustainable performance on any organizational level. As noted by Kaufman (2006), “Everything is measurable, so do not kid yourself into thinking you can dismiss important results as being ‘intangible’ or ‘nonmeasurable’” (p. 149). In addition, effective systems for reporting the business and financial impact measures of performance improvement work promotes greater transparency and accountability, which are important ethical components of any credible and sustainable HPT function.

ANTICIPATE AND MANAGE RISKSSustainability sponsors and project managers routinely collect and convey information about risks and con-straints to help decision makers assess the impact of new business demands and concurrent, conflicting changes in the environment upon project progress and success. For example, most sustainability experts anticipate natural resource shortages will affect their core business objec-tives over the next 3 to 5 years and are building current risk management plans to address future resource defi-cits. Risk management is a facet of performance improve-ment practice that is often underestimated or misjudged. Organizations are being perpetually reshaped by advanc-ing technology, leaner organizational structures, and ever-changing customer demands to produce quick-fix results that may prohibit pursuit of the ideal interven-tion and, ultimately, compromise solution success. To facilitate desired, sustained performance on an individual team or organizational level, HPT professionals must


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develop critical capabilities for managing and respond-ing to planned or unplanned risks that can diminish performance success in both the short and long term. These capabilities include strategic use of environmental scanning approaches for continually assessing potential enablers or inhibitors within the environmental, political, and cultural contexts in which performance improve-ment solutions or processes are meant to reside.

ENGAGE LEADERSLeadership is critical to support and maintain any type of sustainability effort, given that high-level support is needed for a significant, multiyear commitment of time, money, expertise, and resources. Studies on the success and failure of sustainability initiatives show that to suc-ceed, leaders must (1) demonstrate their commitment through the ways in which their business and people are managed, (2) stay engaged in the effort, and (3) reinforce the importance of sustainability through regular com-munications. Similarly, a shift from a performance orien-tation to a sustainable performance orientation requires leadership commitment and a well-communicated, exe-cutable strategy with a long-term line of sight. Challenges with changing leadership, or lack of follow-through with existing leadership, are common risk issues that can thwart success with sustainable performance outcomes on any level. To meet that challenge, HPT professionals need to establish a broad, distributed leadership approach that provides clear expectations of sponsors and stake-holders along with relevant performance support, coach-ing, and feedback tools to ensure leadership momentum and follow-through.

SHARE OWNERSHIPDistributed leadership implies shared ownership. Many companies start with a task force and designated cham-pions to define and drive ownership of sustainability goals. Sustainability champions typically serve many functions, including organizing technical resources; pro-viding staff support; facilitating communication across departments; overseeing system-wide processes for mea-suring, reporting, and incentivizing sustainability efforts to ensure uniformity and consistency; and representing the organization in its dealing with other companies and stakeholder communities. Similarly, promoting employee ownership through the influence of credible champions and advocates is a critical component of a well-integrated, sustainable performance improvement practice that pro-vides long-term value for the individual, the organiza-tion, and the larger society. Shared ownership for a

sustainability focus is particularly critical because some experts estimate that 60–70% of performance improve-ment work in most organizations is being conducted by internal employees with varying degrees of expertise or investment in HPT (Pershing et al., 2008). Ultimately, the task of sustaining performance results or performance improvement processes over time is not the sole respon-sibility of the HPT function.

MAKE IT USEFULA sustainability initiative or a performance improvement function, process, or solution that has no utility will not be sustained. Sustainability and use are interdepen-dent. Standards of utility imply that stakeholders obtain the information they need, at the time they need it, to make informed decisions. Performance improvement professionals must anticipate multiple uses and users of performance data and should not only report on results achieved but present findings about poor outcomes in order to surface problems and present lessons learned for continuous improvement purposes. Performance data that are not seen or used will have little perceived value to the organization or to the stakeholders responsible for supporting and funding the HPT function over time. While systems thinking and multidisciplinary approaches to addressing the root causes of performance problems are generally viewed as a strength of HPT in most orga-nizations, HPT professionals need to do better at clarify-ing HPT principles, communicating HPT values, and demonstrating HPT’s organizational utility and impact (Pershing et al., 2008).

PAY ATTENTION TO THE JOURNEYThe word sustainability implies a long-term, future focus. Sustainable performance on an individual, team, or orga-nizational level improvement system is based upon the idea of sustaining performance results over time. Some experts describe sustainability development in terms of a perpetually renewing “evolution” of growth, where small, evolutionary steps, rather than revolutionary ones, form the basis for continuous improvement. These evolution-ary stages are often likened to maturity levels, where development processes are transformed from ad hoc, undisciplined states to disciplined processes capable of predictable results. These processes build on the infra-structures established at earlier maturity levels and sub-sequently become the foundation for more sophisticated processes at the next level.

The concept of process and practice maturity as a con-tributing factor to sustainable performance is supported


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in project management literature. For example, key find-ings from a study conducted by the Center for Business Practices in project management show that higher levels of project management maturity are associated with higher levels of sustained organizational performance on the basis of eight measures. In general, the higher the level of project maturity, the better the organizational performance in all areas, especially in risk manage-ment (Wall, McHale, & Pomeroy-Huff, 2005). In much the same manner, then, a higher level of performance improvement process maturity can ultimately lead to higher levels of organizational performance over time. Practitioners who know how to consistently add value, manage and conserve resources, engage stakeholders, provide meaningful performance data, foster collabo-ration across all organizational levels, and commit to the long haul are better positioned to reach desired levels of maturity and durability with their performance improvement function. Though a sustainability focus takes significant time and investment, proven rewards include cost savings, improved innovation, increased employee engagement, greater social good, and “the one thing any business understands: competitive advantage” (Van Tiem et al., 2012, p. 432).

SUMMARYToday’s cohort of business leaders are looking for ways to create value-added organizations that will survive and thrive, not just for a quarter or two, but for years, decades, and even generations. Most performance improvement solutions or processes, in and of themselves, cannot be expected to achieve that level of maturity or sustain-ability. However, it is not unreasonable for performance improvement professionals to implement sustainable processes and practices that are capable of supporting future-focused organizational needs and goals. In this context, a sustainable business practice means that pro-fessionals behave responsibly with their resources and impacts and that application of the HPT process is con-tinually reviewed and renewed so that it remains relevant, credible, flexible, and responsive to the changing needs of its users over time.

The topics of business sustainability and sustainable performance are no doubt complex, are not necessarily interchangeable, and have many distinct parts to their respective wholes. The guidelines offered here are cer-tainly not meant to be prescriptive, complete, or overly simplistic. Complex issues often require research, analy-sis, and multifaceted solution development. Sustainability has been described as one of the most challenging and complex issues in performance improvement today

(Van Tiem et al., 2012), and it is difficult to do justice to a complex topic or a single issue.

But no matter how complicated the concept of sus-tainable performance is, performance improvement pro-fessionals need to find a way to “reposition ourselves as strategic partners working with senior managers in devising innovative ways to produce success” (Clark, as quoted in Pershing et al., 2008, p. 16). To achieve success with sustainable performance goals intended to meet the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future, we can learn from the sustainability best practices of other disciplines, other cultures, and other economies; “we need to refrain from limiting ourselves to familiar circles” (Pershing et al., 2008, p. 16).

As a practitioner who cares deeply about develop-ing relevant strategies and resourceful solutions that achieve their intended social, environmental, and eco-nomic impacts, I hope this issue has provoked your thinking about the sustained impact of your own per-formance improvement work. I’m extremely grateful to Darlene, Jim, and Brian at the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) for their tireless, unwavering support and steady hand with this special issue. Many thanks, as well, to Jack Phillips for his con-tribution of a President’s Message devoted to this topic. It is our collective wish that you will continue the dialogue and debate about how to best sustain organizational performance and how to best sustain the future of perfor-mance improvement research, theory, and practice. Please let us hear from you.

References

Canter, R.M. (2009). SuperCorp: How vanguard companies cre-ate innovation, profits, growth, and social good. New York, NY: Crown Business.

Kaufman, R. (2006). Mega planning and thinking: Defining and achieving measurable success. In J. Pershing (Ed.), Handbook of human performance technology (3rd ed., pp. 138–154). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Pershing, J., Lee, J., & Cheng, J. (2008). Current status, future trends, and issues in human performance technology, Part 1: Models, influential disciplines, and research and development. Performance Improvement, 47(1), 9–17. doi:10.1002/pfi.174

Phillips, J., & Phillips, P. (2007). The value of learning. How organizations capture value and ROI and translate it into sup-port, improvement, and funds. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Savitz, A., & Weber, K. (2006). The triple bottom line. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.


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HOLLY BURKETT, CPT, PhD, is a seasoned performance consultant and principal of Evaluation Works in Davis, California. Recognized as an evaluation expert with the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Office of Performance Review (OPR), she is a frequent conference presenter, workshop leader, and author on performance improvement, learning transfer, and performance mea-surement issues. She is a former editor-in-chief of PIJ (2004–2010) and a case study contributor to the third edition of Fundamentals of Performance Improvement: Optimizing Results Through People, Process, and Organizations. She may be reached at [email protected]

Wall, D.S., McHale, J., & Pomeroy-Huff, M. (2005, December). Case study: Accelerating process improvement by integrating the TSP and CMMI. Software engineering institute special report. Retrieved from http://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/abstracts/reports/05sr012.cfm

Van Tiem, D.M., Moseley, J., & Dessinger, J. (2012). Fundamentals of performance improvement: Optimizing results through people, process, and organizations (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Recommended Reading

Pershing, J. (2006). Handbook of human performance technol-ogy (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.


sustainable performance: the new agenda for adding value

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