5
ALIGN Solutions
Talent development and other performance improvement solutions can be expensive endeavors for organizations as far as the time, money, and effort required to develop and deliver them. But when properly aligned to performance outcomes, these solutions are no longer seen as “throwaway work.” Instead, they become strategically valuable—to both the organization and the employees for whom they’re designed.
Throughout the ALIGN Solutions phase, you’re striving to make strategically aligned and collaborative decisions about the performance gaps you need to address and how you will address them. Your aim is to find the best investment solutions-ones with timely implementation, with the greatest chance of being adopted by employees, and with the highest return on investment. Table 5-1 lists objectives to accomplish and activities to help you meet them.
Table 5-1. ALIGN Solutions: Objectives and Activities
| Objectives to Accomplish | Activities Designed to Meet the Objectives |
|
• Analyze and align gaps in performance • Determine alignment level of performance gaps |
• Align performance gaps to level of results • Collaboratively identify gaps to address |
|
• Identify root causes of gaps in performance results |
• Conduct root causes analysis • Identify barriers and supports to successful solution implementation |
|
• Analyze and select solutions aligned to gaps in performance |
• Identify shared solution selection criteria • Facilitate aligned solution selection decision making • Define critical factors that will facilitate successful and sustainable implementation of the solutions • Select aligned solutions |
|
• Conduct an ongoing reflection of your work |
• Ongoing review of the ALIGN Solutions checklist to assess your performance |
Analyzing Performance Gaps
In the last step of ALIGN Results, you charted a comparison between current performance and desired performance. This comparison led to specific and measurable gaps in performance results (-10 accidents per year, -10 percent market share, -10 new accounts per quarter). Using these gaps as evidence, you can now engage your stakeholders in a discussion about which gaps to close and which gaps to ignore or postpone.
Using the information from the last phase, Kai identified gaps within each level of alignment:
• Value-Add
-2% policy owner security feedback score
-6.5% agent feedback score
• Organizational
-7% voluntary turnover rate
-2% employee engagement score
-4% (A), -5% (B), -2% (C) agent satisfaction rating
-250 in number of sales
• Operational
+7 days wait time for processing
+15 minutes time in queue
-42% documentation of standard operating procedures
-10 cases per day
-5 agent to claims associate interactions per day
• Learning
-28% information accuracy
The next meeting with the project team was used to review the gaps in performance results. When reviewing the evidence, Kai described the performance gaps in specific and measurable terms. The team noticed how none of the performance gaps described needing something, such as when Jessie first reached out to Kai with a need for team-building training to solve the problems in the claims department. Investigating true gaps in performance helped the team discover what the problems were. And with that evidence to support decisions about which solutions to choose, Kai led the team to strategic decisions, created strategic alignment between L&D work and the business, and deepened strategic relationships with stakeholders.
Using Kai’s example, these gaps influence results at all four levels: value-add, organizational, operational, and learning. However, you cannot realistically address all of these gaps in performance at one time, so it is helpful to determine the criteria you and your stakeholders will apply to handle gaps in performance. Which gaps should you tackle first? Second? Should you tackle a few at once?
To better understand which gaps to address, it is important for you and your stakeholders to negotiate and decide the criteria that will be most important, given the context and realities of the business, so that everyone is on the same page about how to make selection decisions before making them. Some criteria that may be important for your stakeholder to consider include:
• How high of a priority is it to close the gap?
• What employees, departments, and customers are affected by the gap?
• What is the estimated scope of the work, as well as the financial and nonfinancial costs involved in closing the gap?
• How important is closing the gap to management? To employees? To clients?
• What are the anticipated financial and nonfinancial consequences and risks of not closing the gap?
• What is the magnitude of the gap?
• What are the potential consequences to higher alignment levels?
Kai’s team reviewed the list of identified gaps, and the conversation quickly moved to negotiating the most important ones to the stakeholder. Kai then asked each stakeholder to complete the gap selection criteria rubric (Table 5-2) individually by rating how important each criterion was to making a decision about solutions. By collaboratively identifying these criteria, Kai was able to continue creating strategic relationships with stakeholders, developing a deeper understanding of what criteria they use to make decisions, and learning how to successfully meet stakeholder expectations.
Kai tallied the responses from each stakeholder to determine which criteria should would be given the greatest consideration when making decisions about which gaps to address and when (Table 5-3).
Table 5-2. Gap Selection Criteria Rubric
Table 5-3. Gap Decision Criteria Scoring Worksheet
With a shared understanding of the decision criteria, the group selected gaps that:
• were of high priority to the organization
• had the greatest reach within and outside the organization
• were highly important to the organization and its stakeholders.
Using this shared decision criteria, the team then negotiated the priority order and the number of gaps that could be addressed now. They considered questions such as what competing priorities may affect the number of gaps to select, as well as the timing of when each could be addressed, and if any of the gaps should be addressed together or in a sequential order. Kai’s team identified four gaps to address immediately that met the most important shared criteria, and listed them in order of importance:
• -28 percent information accuracy
• -4 percent (A), -5 percent (B), -2 percent (C) agent satisfaction ratings
• +7 days wait time for processing
• +15 minutes time in queue.
Your team may also consider what to do about the gaps that were not selected for immediate solution. Will they be postponed? Monitored for a delayed decision? Abandoned entirely? Keep track of these gaps on your own, as well. As new problems and opportunities arise, you may be able to connect additional moving parts that are influencing performance in your organization. As new information becomes available through your continued strategic alignment work, the pressure points of the organization become more visible and allow you to do your job better and faster.
Now that you and your stakeholders have collaboratively identified which performance gaps to address, you can facilitate a shared understanding to determine the appropriate alignment level of these selected gaps. By doing this with your stakeholders, you will help the team select the most appropriate, and aligned, solution to the performance issue. Not only will your stakeholders be engaged in the decision making and implementation of solutions, but they will also share accountability for the results of your collaborative efforts.
Remember, with your systemic view, regardless of the alignment level of the performance gap, it has a relationship to the other levels. For example, the performance gap of “-5 agent to claims associate interactions per day” falls within the operational level with the number of interactions with a relationship to learning, organizational, and value-add results. As such, you must anticipate and account for the response to other levels of alignment.
Identifying Root Causes of Performance
With a negotiated understanding of the gaps you and your stakeholders will address (and the reasons supporting those shared decisions), your next step is to determine what is behind the performance gap the organization is experiencing. The effectiveness of your solution selection and implementation efforts are heavily contingent on uncovering the root cause of the performance problem. In other words, you must first determine the factors preventing or limiting the desired performance level.
To find root causes of performance problems you have to dig deeper. The problem the requestor is experiencing is likely the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface is where you’ll find the opportunity to advance your strategic contribution; you’ll reveal patterns and relationships across the organization that deal with culture and performance. As you dig deeper, you will be well positioned to select a solution that addresses the cause rather than the symptom. Here, your conversations will extend beyond how the organization is responding to the gaps to also include talking about what’s causing this response. With that information, you have the best chance of picking the solution that has the best opportunity to succeed and avoid a wasteful use of resources, or even worse, performance results.
Kai’s team identified four gaps to address, each of which required thoughtful investigation into their root cause(s). Before meeting with the project team, Kai considered how to direct the conversation about uncovering root causes by thinking through the team’s pick for the top gap: -28 percent information accuracy. Kai had a couple options for how to direct the conversation:
Meeting Option 1:
With the target gap identified (-28 percent information accuracy), the team would discuss potential solutions for closing the gap. Team members shared ideas for a solution, which were mostly ones the team was accustomed to using. The team decided a product training class would be the most effective for claims associates. Kai then started asking questions about implementing the solution: How many claims associates will receive the training? How long should the training be? What specific customer service topics should be covered?
Meeting Option 2:
With the target gap identified (-28 percent information accuracy), the team would discuss why the feedback score was below the target of 100 percent. Team members shared ideas about causes, which covered individual causes, such as claims associates are poorly motivated to do the work and this leads to errors, and environment causes, such as claims associates are receiving conflicting product information and this leads to errors. Team members calibrated their ideas, discussed how each may be influencing performance, and negotiated what would be required to make desired performance more attainable.
Meeting 1 is more typical of many work environments. Quick decisions mean quick action, and quick action is often rewarded. But notice that one slight change in the direction—from discussing solutions to discussing causes—can have a rewarding influence on the effectiveness and efficiency of the solution the team selects and on the dynamics and relationship L&D has with stakeholders.
After these meetings, it was clear that Kai was making headway building a strategic partnership with Jessie. Kai was discussing gaps in performance and making collaborative decisions with other stakeholders about which gaps to address, as well as building knowledge about current business challenges, and growing confident that this team’s decisions for solutions will meet those business needs.
Thomas Gilbert (1978), an industrial psychologist who studied under B.F. Skinner, highlighted the importance of considering both individual and environmental factors when examining performance in the workplace. You may hear a manager say “the employeeis not motivated” or “just doesn’t want to do it” when explaining why performance results are falling short. These assumptions place sole responsibility of the performance problem on the individual performer. However, Gilbert suggested that individual performance does not happen in a vacuum. Performance is the result of the interaction between the individual performer and her environment; therefore, when analyzing performance you must look at not only the performance of individuals, but also where and how that performance exists in the work environment.
Both individual and environmental factors contribute to performance, with environmental factors contributing the greatest barriers (Gilbert 1978). In fact, the workplace environment is the first place you should look, and it also happens to be where you have the most leverage for improvement.
Table 5-4 offers some lines of questioning that may identify the potential environmental and individual factors below the tip of the iceberg.
Table 5-4. Adapted Behavior Engineering Model
Adapted from Chevalier (2002) and Gilbert (1978).
It was now Kai’s team’s turn to uncover the factors that were affecting (driving or inhibiting) performance. Using the root causes analysis template (Table 5-5), along with stakeholders, Kai identified the environmental and individual factors that underlie the target performance gap. To identify these factors, Kai started with the first gap, -28 percent information accuracy, and asked stakeholders, “Why do you think we are experiencing a gap of -28 percent in information accuracy?”
Once the stakeholder offered a response, Kai asked them to drill down further by asking “why?” multiple times:
• Response 1: Claims associates do not give consistent information to agents.
Why?
• Response 2: Claims associates use various product information resources.
Why?
• Response 3: Claims associates create their own job aids and documentation.
Why?
• Response 4: Work processes are not centrally documented or vetted.
Why?
• Response 5: Claims associates do not have access to an online workspace to share or view documented work processes.
Root cause.
Kai’s team continued this process of asking why repetitively to drill down to the root cause of each performance gap. Because not all of the categories in the root cause analysis template were relevant, Kai’s team only filled in the applicable identified root causes.
Table 5-5. Root Causes Analysis Template
Now that your team has a good idea about what is under the surface and promoting or limiting performance, you can discuss how these identified drivers and barriers may be related and continue refining your shared understanding of the larger context of performance. A helpful tool to analyze these drivers and restraints of performance is Lewin’s (1951) force field analysis. This tool is also useful for identifying the solution that will be necessary to move performance in the desired direction. For example, training as a solution cannot survive in the workplace on its own. In other words, you cannot train employees, put them back on the job, and expect their performance to magically improve. Other performance supports-such as line manager support with weekly feedback and changes to employee workload-may be necessary to achieve results at all levels of alignment.
Kai’s team used the Force Field Analysis Worksheet (Table 5-6) to consider the drivers (those forces within the organization that help promote the desired performance) and the barriers (those forces that get in the way). This exercise helped the project team think through the realities of the working environment. Kai’s team listed the environmental and individual factors that promoted the desired performance on the left. Then, they rated the level of strength of the factor(s) by indicating +5 as the highest driving strength or 0 as neutral driving strength. Next, they listed the environmental and individual factors that prevented or limited the desired performance on the right. Finally, they rated the level of strength of the factors by indicating -5 as the highest restraining strength or 0 as neutral restraining strength.
Table 5-6. Force Field Analysis Worksheet
You may opt to complete the force field analysis worksheet individually or as a team. In either case, it is important for team members to share their assumptions about what is driving and what is creating barriers to expected performance. With such a discussion, you can better determine the solution most appropriate to bring current performance up to desired levels.
As a team, review your responses and discuss how each of the identified factors is influencing performance, and what would be required to change the factor so that desired performance is more attainable. Remember, environmental factors have the greatest influence on performance; therefore, changes to these factors will have a greater chance of changing performance than individual factors.
Identifying Potential Solutions
You and your team of stakeholders are in a good position to make an informed decision about what solutions are most appropriate to address the performance problem or opportunity. You know what gaps are in performance, what factors are influencing that performance, and to what degree those factors are influencing performance. Now, you and your team are ready to determine appropriately aligned solutions.
To be sure the solution has the greatest chance for implementation, acceptance, and sustainability, it is a good practice to decide with your stakeholders what criteria you will use to make this important decision. Just as you did when collaboratively analyzing which gaps in performance to address with stakeholders, you should collaborate with stakeholders to identify and negotiate the criteria most important to them when making performance solution decisions.
See Table 5-7 for potential criteria to consider with your stakeholders when deciding on which solutions make the most sense given the evidence you have and the environment in which the solution will exist long term. In addition, ask your stakeholders:
• What criteria are most important to you?
• How important is each criterion you selected?
Table 5-7. Solution Selection Decision Criteria Checklist
| Criterion | Defined | Scoring |
| Probability | What is the probability that this solution will close the gap? |
3-High probability 2-Moderate probability 1-Low probability 0-No probability |
| Appropriateness | Does this solution make sense for our business, culture, and environment? |
3-Very appropriate 2-Moderately appropriate 1-Somewhat appropriate 0-Not at all appropriate |
| Ability to support | What is the organizational ability to support the solution long term? |
3-High ability 2-Moderate ability 1-Low ability 0-No ability |
| Barriers and constraints | What are the organizational barriers or constraints to implementing the solution long term? |
3-No barriers or constraints 2-Low barriers or constraints 1-Moderate barriers or constraints 0-High barriers or constraints |
| Acceptability | What is the anticipated acceptance of those who will affect or be affected by the solution long term? |
3-High acceptance 2-Moderate acceptance 1-Low acceptance 0-No acceptance |
| Time to implement | What is the anticipated total time required to implement the solution? |
3-Time is not a concern 2-Time to implement is reasonable 1-Time to implement is a stretch but manageable 0-Time to implement is unreasonable |
| Cost to implement | What are the total costs of the solution (effort, time away from current work, maintenance)? |
3-Below budget 2-Reasonable and within budget 1-A stretch, but manageable 0-Unreasonable, not doable |
Kai knew the performance context was critical to the success of any solutions. In addition, understanding the criteria the stakeholders used to judge whether the solution “worked” was critical to the team’s strategic relationship with the stakeholders. Even with positive improvements in results, stakeholders may think a solution didn’t work if they are more concerned about whether the solution was too expensive, took too long, or faced resistance from staff. Kai used the solution decision criteria checklist and asked stakeholders to identify the score for each solution criterion. Kai then used the scoring worksheet in Table 5-8 to total the scores by category and assess the importance of each stakeholder. This exercise responded to the question, “What is the most important solution criteria according to the team?”
Table 5-8. Solution Decision Criteria Scoring Worksheet
The team’s preferred order suggests that the selected solution must:
• Have a high probability that it would specifically address the performance gap.
• Be something that the organization could support long term.
• Keep total costs of the solution at or below budget.
• Make some sense for the business, culture, and working environment.
• Have moderate to low organizational barriers or constraints to implement.
• Achieve moderate to low acceptance by those who would affect or be affectedby the solution long term.
• Require a manageable amount of time to implement the solution.
From here, Kai’s team was now able to explore potential solutions that fit the gap, as well as their shared decision criteria that facilitate successful implementation of the identified solutions using the same template design for analyzing the root cause of the performance problem.
The team identified collaborative solution options by inputting the selected solutions into the environmental and individual performance solutions template (Table 5-9). Kai’s team did not identify a solution for every box in the template, so they were only included where applicable and when they fit with the team’s shared decision criteria.
Table 5-9. Environmental and Individual Performance Solutions
Once you have some appropriate solution options to select from, you and your team can consider each carefully, specifically answering:
• What is the probability of each solution’s overall potential to fit your environment and current circumstances?
• What is the organization’s ability to support this solution long term?
• What are the high-level cost estimates to implement the solution long term?
• How appropriate is this solution to your business? Will it make sense to your stakeholders given your environment and current circumstances?
• What are the potential barriers and constraints that may inhibit the successful, long-term implementation of this solution?
• How likely are your stakeholders to accept this solution?
• What are the high-level estimates of time to implement the solution long term?
By reviewing and weighting the solution decision criteria collaboratively with clients, Kai made positive moves toward shared accountability with stakeholders and guided the team toward solution selections that made the most sense for the organization, taking the people, culture, and realities of the work environment into consideration.
During the discovery meetings, Kristen, the director of operations, expressed concerns about using resources for development purposes. She explained her hesitancy was in not funding “nice to haves,” but she was very receptive to solutions that met documented business needs. By demonstrating the strategic process used to identify that a need does exist, the impact that problem may have should the need go unaddressed, and how the solution is aligned to the documented need, Kai could ensure alignment between the problem and solution and demonstrate the real strategic value of L&D contributions.
Using the solution options rubric (Table 5-10), Kai’s team brainstormed many potential solutions and then reviewed each according to the shared decision-making criteria. Kai decided to include the initial request for a team-building training program in the analysis. Based on the team’s shared solution decision criteria, Kai ranked the potential solutions in order in the first column. Team members responded to the question of “How closely does this solution meet the criteria?” by rating each solution on a scale of 0 to 3 (with 3 as the highest potential). Compiling all the scores from team members, Kai added the columns for each solution to identify the solutions with the greatest chance of success.
Table 5-10. Solution Options Rubric
After completing the rubric, Kai and the team determined that the first two solutions (developing a content knowledge management system and developing a performance management and measurement system) had the best chance of implementation success, given the performance gaps, support and barriers, shared solution criteria, and organizational realities. After the team reviewed the scores for the team-building training class, they agreed it was misaligned to the performance problem. This misalignment stemmed from challenges with resource allocation from senior leadership for a “development” solution, the current workload in the claims department, the inability of claims associates to take part in a solution that removes them from the job, and the importance of integrating the solution into the daily work of claims associates. With a decision in hand, Kai turned to negotiating the details of the implementation and execution of the solutions with all relevant stakeholders.
Align Solutions Checklist
Use the checklist below to ensure you have covered all elements necessary for successful demonstration of your ALIGN Solutions efforts.
| Element of Alignment | Yes/No | How To |
| My System Thinking | ||
| I outlined relationships and consequences for thevarious solutions | Y/N | |
| My Strategic Thinking | ||
| I recommended appropriately aligned improvements to help the organization realize our desired results | Y/N | |
| I planned ahead by anticipating multiple scenarios and appropriate courses of action | Y/N | |
| My Critical Thinking | ||
| I generated a reasoned method for selecting among several solution options | Y/N | |
| I applied metacognitive knowledge so that I could monitor my own performance | Y/N | |
| My Collaboration With Stakeholders | ||
| I have communicated a commitment to foster teamwork and shared accountability for group decision making about the performance solution | Y/N | |
| I facilitated an openness to a variety of solutions | Y/N | |
| I presented coherent and persuasive arguments for controversial or difficult issues | Y/N | |
| I drove teamwork by recognizing and rewarding the achievement of goals, rather than individual performance | Y/N | |
| I established partnerships and reduced silo work by teaming up with other groups in the organization | Y/N | |
| I supported and committed to group decisions that fostered teamwork and shared accountability for our efforts | Y/N | |