The Sigmoid Curve of Performance

I made the big decision last week to resign from my current job and venture off into the big wide world. I don’t currently have anything lined up. Plan A is to get a full-time position, Plan B is to contract, and Plan C is to do lots of baking and catch up on reading. I’ve thought this through, which should be obvious from the amount of plans I’ve made, but I do get asked what I am going on to and get the subsequent shocked expression when I reply with “I don’t know… yet”.

So HOW did I decide to do this? Well, and this might sound really odd; I used something called a Sigmoid curve to help with my decision making (amongst other things of course, like how poor I’m going to be if it doesn’t work out – I’m going to focus on the positive though). The Sigmoid curve was something refreshed in my memory a few weeks ago, at the HRINZ Industrial Org SIG that I raved about in a previous blog. If you don’t know what a sigmoid curve is, it is a line that goes upwards, plateaus and then starts going down. It is generally used to describe organizational performance and change management. I think it’s a good model for individual performance as well.

So WHY on earth did I use an abstract model like the Sigmoid curve to make a really important and life changing decision? I used it because it made sense to me. My performance shot up in my first 1-2 years in this role, by year 3 it plateaued, and now in year 3+ my performance is deteriorating (despite my efforts to kick myself into gear). I could float around until I find a new position and then leave, but I don’t believe I’d be doing myself, or the company, any favors.

So WHAT does the sigmoid curve represent in terms of individual performance? Just like new business ventures, employees grow and develop in their role. Once they’ve mastered their work, their growth plateaus and then, unless a new challenge is introduced, there is risk that their growth will deteriorate. There is actually research into this as well, so I’m not just spouting off based on my own experience. I came across Karesek and Theorell’s Healthy Work: Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life in my Masters research. They talk about situations whereby a decrease in pressure can lead to apathy and a decline in learning.

Personally, I thrive on project work and new challenges. I’m never going to survive in a role that is considered as ‘maintaining the status quo’. However, I do know people who are happy with things as they are, but they are usually not the kinds of people who cope with change well and we all know things change sooner or later. This has implications for both performance management and succession planning. How do you recognize when an employee is nearing the top of the curve? And then what do you do about it when they are? There are some awesome tools out there to measure performance (like Sonar6), but then what do you do about that performance? That’s what counts.

Should L&D specialists sit at the executive table?

I heard this question asked recently and, ashamedly, I kept my mouth shut because everyone else was vehemently purporting L&D specialists being part of the executive table and I did not want to be hung, drawn, and quartered by people that I had only just met and wanted to have a good impression of me. If I had been brave enough to speak up my answer would have been “no”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think L&D (Learning and Development) is extremely important, but I think it is also important to put it into context. L&D is a function of organizational performance but it is not the only factor that contributes to this. L&D has to be considered in the context of the bigger picture. That bigger picture includes elements of culture, strategy, vision, values, leadership and engagement.

When you consider what functions should sit on that senior executive level, it should really be those areas that have a strategic impact on the business. L&D has to be considered in the complete bundle of practices that sit under either the HR (Human Resources) or the OD (Organizational Development) banner. So either one or both of those functions should have representatives at the executive table.

Now, most of us know what HR is. Broadly speaking it is the function that looks after the policies, employment agreements, hiring and firing of staff. Often, it also looks after areas in the OD domain including engagement, culture etc. and, in small to medium organisations, also encompasses the L&D function. In reality, if you look at OD, L&D, and HR job descriptions there is so much overlap between them that it is difficult to distinguish the difference. Possibly, as a result, there is confusion about what the difference is between all three, but in particular there is confusion in the difference between L&D and OD.

I don’t purport to know exactly what the difference is, but the way I describe it is that an L&D role is more akin to an instructional design role, whereas OD encompasses L&D but includes all those other bits I’ve mentioned above that impact on organizational performance. OD is about creating synergies between all these factors for the greater good of the organization at a very strategic level.

Now if you had asked me 6 months ago whether L&D should be represented at the executive table, I would have said “absolutely”. But this perception has been based on my experiences in an L&D role that encompassed parts of OD – my concept of what an L&D role was skewed towards OD. So we need to be careful about what we are categorizing here. L&D does contribute to strategy, but as part of a wider picture. Representation at the executive level must have a focus on strategic outcomes not just making sure that various interests are represented.

Could a learning organization also be 'lean'?

I love going to events where I meet new, like-minded, HR people or catch up with people that I have not seen in ages. I also enjoy being so completed riveted by what the speaker is saying  that I lose track of time.

I went to one such HRINZ (Human Resources Institute of New Zealand) event this week, organized by the Industrial Organisation SIG (Special Interest Group). The topic was learning organisations and it was a case study of Refining NZ (New Zealand  – so many acronyms!). Coincidentally I had also caught up with an ex-colleague from the University of Auckland at this event and we had got talking about lean manufacturing. ‘Lean’, in a nutshell, is a system of work design supposedly designed to engage and empower the workforce. ‘Lean’ is also a bit of a pet topic because I did my Masters research on it last year with interesting results. I will share more of my results in a future blog, but I’ll touch on a few things here.

At this SIG Dr Harold Hillman (Sigmoid Consulting) and Anna Meyer (Refining NZ) presented key learnings from the development of a learning organization at Refining NZ. I wrote three pages of notes, which is quite impressive for me because I usually prefer to sit back and absorb but there were so many interesting things I wanted to make note of. I will, however, summarize my key ‘takeaways’ into two areas: Leadership and “slaying sacred cows”. What have these got to do with lean you ask? Because I sat through this SIG thinking, “this is what ‘lean’ should look like!”

Let’s start with leadership. The development of a learning organization requires leaders to be completely onboard with changing the existing paradigm. Change comes from the top. What has this got to do with lean? Well my research found that leadership was integral to the successful implementation of lean. Leaders need to be motivated, equipped with the skills and given the opportunity to apply the principles. Senior leadership also needs to be onboard, and driving change through their words AND actions.

Secondly, the “slaying sacred cows” part. To become a learning organization you need to be able to challenge and change the way things that are always done, everyone knows about and nothing is done about. The organizing system has to support disruption and leadership needs to demonstrate that the cows are slayable, the status quo needs to be challenged. I’m not sure if traditional models of lean fully support slaying sacred cows. But why not? If it does, employees need to be empowered to do this.

In summary, Learning is required in order for businesses to not only stay abreast of change but also anticipate and respond to change. There are similarities between learning organisations and lean organisations. Both rely on a model whereby the business is a fully integrated system, feedback is driven upwards and the destiny of the business and its responsiveness to change is reframed. There is a lot of argument around whether a lean organization is truly a learning organization, but it really does depend on how this is done. I'd love to see someone make 'lean' and 'learning' one and the same (or do it myself). 

Trial and Error

Ok, so I was supposed to be working on my blog tonight but got kind of side-tracked by another blog I came across today called Rasberricupcakes.com. It’s a girl (Steph) in Sydney who writes about her cooking or, more precisely, her baking exploits. I’m hooked. Why wouldn’t I be? She’s made a Tim Tam cake for goodness sake!

Tim Tam cakes aside; the blog is not just a list of recipes. Steph tells stories around how she came up with the idea for whatever she has made, through adaptation of existing recipes and trial and error. She is refreshingly honest and forthright about her mistakes, her messes and her meltdowns (sometimes literally and concerning chocolate).

Trial and error is all part of learning right? Some days I feel I make more mistakes then getting things right, particularly where my work is concerned, and my confidence gets chocolate chip sized as a result. But I just have to believe that things will turn out well in the end, maybe not a Tim Tam cake but something close and, if I keep practicing and through trial and error, I’ll get a great recipe in the end (metaphorically speaking).

In the meantime, I think I’ll just go and find some chocolate.