Cause Analysis

Cause analysis is the final step in the Performance Analysis Phase of the Performance Improvement/HPT Model. A cause analysis will determine why the performance gap exists leading to the real issues and not the superficial ones. Figure 8.1 shows the cause analysis component of the model.

Definition and Scope

“Cause analysis is the process of determining the root cause(s) of past, present, or future performance gaps. It follows, but is integrally related to, performance analysis.”¹ Cause analysis is integral to conducting a thorough performance analysis. While organizational, environmental, and gap analyses yield valuable information, a cause analysis determines why the performance gap exists.

Cause analysis is the “bridge” between performance analysis and the appropriate intervention(s) that will eliminate the performance gap. Using the roots of a tree as an analogy, Rosenberg suggests: “look under the performance gap to discover its roots … select intervention(s) … to both feed the high performance roots and eliminate the roots that caused the performance gap.”² Linking training to business needs, cause analysis “provides us with the data to respond to either of these two questions: What is causing an end-result and/or on-the-job performance deficiency? What might prevent newly learned skills from being transferred to the job?”³

Various experts have viewed causes from different perspectives. Historically, experts like Robert Mager, Peter Pipe, Thomas Gilbert, Geary Rummler, Alan Brache, and Joe Harless suggest that performance problems are essentially deficiencies of knowledge, skills, training or a host of management deficiencies.⁴ Rossett identified four kinds of drivers, causes, barriers, or obstacles that impact success or failure: lack of skill, knowledge, and information; flawed incentives; flawed environment, tools, and processes; and lack of motivation. Drivers are “everything that it takes to enable performance to ‘grow.’”⁵

FIGURE 8.1. Performance Improvement/HPT Model: Cause Analysis Component

Robinson and Robinson identified three major causes of performance deficiencies: causes due to the learner, causes due to the manager or boss of the learner, and causes due to the organization.⁶ Perhaps the most influential listing of performance causes comes from Gilbert's work on human competence, especially his three leisurely theorems and his Behavior Engineering Model (BEM).

Three Leisurely Theorems

Gilbert, affectionately known as the “father of human performance,” developed the three leisurely theorems to provide structure to both cause analysis and human performance. They offer guidance and insight and serve as beacons for performance improvement practitioners and their clients.

1. Value Is in Accomplishment. Worthy performance is the relationship between valuable accomplishments and costly behavior. “The true value of competence is derived from accomplishment, not from behavior.”⁷ In simple terms, accomplishment equals value; whereas, behavior equals cost. Gilbert goes on to say that “human competence is found in overt performance, not in hidden behavior.”⁸
2. Measure Against a Standard. Performance can be measured against a standard, “comparing the very best instance of performance with what is typical.”⁹ This measure of competence—the ratio of exemplary performance to typical or actual performance—he calls the PIP or the “potential for improving performance.” PIP tells us our current state of competence and our opportunities for bettering the situation.
3. Assess Environmental Versus Individual Causes. This theorem “identifies where we have to look in order to find the causes of competence and incompetence.”¹⁰ Gilbert also refers to this theorem as the “management theorem.” Stolovitch, paraphrasing Gilbert, says “Deficiencies in accomplishments are ultimately caused by management system weaknesses.”¹¹ Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model (BEM), with its emphasis on behavior and environment, is the heart of theorem 3.

Behavior Engineering Model

According to Gilbert, there are three factors that influence performance—information, instrumentation, and motivation. The Behavior Engineering Model (Figure 8.2) illustrates that factors may be either rooted in the environment or in the individual.

The Behavior Engineering Model contains six cells. The data, instrumentation, and incentives cells represent “the system”—environmental factors affecting performance. “If you pit a good performer against a bad system, the system will win almost every time.”¹² Knowledge, capacity, and motives represent individual factors affecting performance. The BEM has been adapted to guide the performance improvement practitioner in the search for causes (see Table 8.1).

FIGURE 8.2. Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model

Adapted from Gilbert, 1978. Used with permission.

Chevalier updated the Behavior Engineering Model language to make it more individual, team, and organization-friendly.¹³ Another update is offered by Binder in his Six Boxes™ Model. Behavior influences are sorted into six sets similar to Gilbert's; however, the labels used for each cell and some details discussed within each category are different. The Binder cells are Expectations and Feedback, Tools and Resources, Consequences and Incentives, Skills and Knowledge, Capacity or Selection and Assignment, and Motives and Preferences or Attitude.¹⁴

Conducting Cause Analysis

Too often performance improvement practitioners are overly confident in their diagnostic abilities and they move from performance analysis to intervention selection before thoroughly understanding the causes of the performance gap. Symptoms are often disguised as causes. Without a solid understanding of cause analysis and how it affects work, workers, workplace, and the world perspective, the choice of incentives is flawed. Cause analysis determines why the performance gap exists and how it affects the unique mission, needs, wants, and desires of the organization. Only then can the practitioner choose the appropriate intervention(s).

TABLE 8.1. BEM Adapted to Cause Analysis

Sources: Rothwell, 1996, pp. 13–14; Dean, 1997, pp. 45–51. Used with permission.

Steps

The following steps can be used to conduct a cause analysis of a performance gap:

1. Identify the driver or cause of the performance gap;
2. Classify the driver or cause by determining where it originates within the enhanced classification of the environment of human performance—world, workplace, work, or worker;
3. Prioritize the driver or cause according to high or low impact on the performance environment;
4. Generate as many cause examples as possible. This provides an opportunity to look at many sides of the problem. If either skills or knowledge is identified as a cause, then the list may include examples showing that the employee has forgotten how to use the skill; doesn't have adequate information; lacks training in specific processes and procedures; doesn't know the components of the system, and so forth. If consequences are a cause and incentives and rewards are identified, then the list may include examples that indicate poor performance is rewarded, no management planning exists, competing incentives send mixed messages, and so forth; and
5. Verify causes and corresponding examples with another performance improvement colleague by asking who, what, when, where, and why questions. In addition, stakeholders may shed light on the topic and stakeholder support and buy in are necessary.

Techniques and Tools

There are a variety of techniques and tools for conducting cause analysis, shown in Table 8.2.

TABLE 8.2. Cause Analysis Tools

Name of Tool	Brief Description
Interview	Structured or unstructured Excellent for rapport building and follow-up questions Questions can be open-ended or probing
Observation	Captures current skills and knowledge as well as context Inferences about work are generated Takes time to effectively use
Surveys or Questionnaires	Anonymous Large numbers of people can be surveyed Require clarity, effective directions, user-friendly questions, and skill in constructing
Focus Groups	Structure opportunities for soliciting information Participants must be briefed and debriefed Role of facilitator and scribe are crucial
Root Cause Analysis	Trace the causes and effects of accidents or other problems that are past-oriented Chronology of events reported and recorded on paper Relationship of one event to another becomes clear Result is a wall-sized flow chart Participants questioned to pinpoint root cause of problem
Fishbone Diagram	Cause-and-effect diagram, used in Total Quality Management (TQM) Past-oriented with focus on identifying negative performance gaps All causes traced to people, policies/procedures, equipment, climate Troubleshooting tool
Portfolio Analysis	Financial management tool with focus on positive performance gaps Develop grid Make decisions based on likelihood of payoff Great for stakeholder involvement

In addition, flow charts, histograms, Pareto charts, and run charts are useful for identifying causes of performance gaps. Computerized programs and systems are also available. TapRoot by System Improvements, Inc., and REASON Root Cause Analysis by Decision Systems, Inc., and PROACT RC Analysis by [email protected] are useful to shape a cause analysis.¹⁵

Lack of Environmental Support

Environmental support includes those things that management provides and that the performer needs to perform effectively and efficiently. According to Gilbert, environmental performance support includes the following:

• Information (data, information, and feedback)
• Instrumentation (environment support, resources, and tools)
• Motivation (consequences, incentives, and rewards)

A gap between the available environmental support components, as shown in Table 8.3, and the performance support requirements or needs of the worker usually drive or cause a performance gap.

Data, Information, and Feedback

“A successful performer (person) knows how to do what is expected and when it is appropriate to do it.”¹⁶ Part of this knowledge may come from schooling or past experience; however, complete, clear, unambiguous, and up-to-date data on performance expectations and information regarding correct procedures are required for successful on-the-job performance. The data or information must also be available and easily accessible to the performer. Data and information that are vital to successful performance may include organizational policies, job or task procedures, tolerance levels for machinery, customer requirements, or supplier concerns. “Lack of information is not identical to ‘lack of timely information.’ Instead, it means that performers receive no information and remain in the dark about changes affecting the organization.”¹⁷

Performers also need frequent and timely feedback on the results of their performance:

TABLE 8.3. Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model—Environmental Support

Adapted from Gilbert, 1978. Used with permission.

Environment Support, Resources, and Tools

Environment support, resources, and tools are those things that management provides to support or assist the performer. Environment support may include ergonomic, health, wellness, and safety factors that have an impact on performance. For example, problems with such diverse factors as air quality, workspace, rest areas, lighting, workload, hazardous material handling, work flow design, or workstation construction may cause performance gaps.

Resources refer to the time, money, materials, and personnel allocated to the performance. Resources must be adequate and of sufficient quality to allow for successful accomplishment of the performance. Allocating inadequate resources or substituting poor quality resources may cause performance problems.

Tools are instruments required to complete the job, such as a computer and software for filling out tax forms or the correct equipment to attach a car part on the assembly line. Tools should be available, accessible, efficient, and safe.

Sometimes employees do not have the environment support, resources, and tools they need to do their job—either what they need does not exist because the company has not made the investment or what they need exists, but is not functioning properly. Performing an appendectomy in a hospital operating suite is a fairly routine procedure. The operating room has a sterile, controlled environment, state-of-the-art machinery and instruments, and qualified personnel. Emergency equipment and staff are on hand in case of complications. In contrast, performing an appendectomy in the wilderness without the appropriate facilities, machinery, tools, staff, or emergency backup would not be routine and could cause a gap between desired and actual performance.

Consequences, Incentives, or Rewards

Consequences are events or effects produced by a preceding act. For example, inappropriate lighting may cause eyestrain and prevent an employee from doing a stellar job. Incentives are the stimuli that influence or encourage people to do their jobs. Incentives may be internal or external. Working very hard on an assigned task may be sufficient for one employee to earn merit, while another employee may need feedback from a supervisor. On the other hand, rewards are items given in return for services. Rewards may be monetary or nonmonetary.

Gilbert lists three types of performance-based incentives: monetary incentives, nonmonetary incentives and career development opportunities.¹⁹ Examples of monetary performance-based incentives include suggestion systems that offer money to employees whose suggestions are adopted, profit sharing, stock options bonuses, business class air travel, and membership in health clubs. Examples of nonmonetary performance-based incentives include time off with pay, gifts, simple recognition awards or programs, special parking places, and popular company logo items. Career development opportunities may be monetary or nonmonetary, depending on whether the opportunities include tuition reimbursement or an increase in pay upon completion of a program. Both monetary and nonmonetary incentives can contribute to increasing productivity and self-esteem.

Assessing consequences, incentives, or rewards helps determine why people do what they do. Most employees perform tasks, react to their environments, and interact with colleagues based on perceptions of rewards for performance and consequences of actions. They maximize positive consequences, incentives, or rewards and minimize negative forces.

Analyzing Environmental Factors That Influence Performance

It is important to acknowledge that the work environment can cause performance problems; it is also important to determine from where in the work environment the problem exists. In addition to assessing consequences, incentives, and monetary or nonmonetary rewards, the performance improvement practitioner should also assess whether the organization consciously or unconsciously supports a policy of disincentives.

Rossett writes about companies “speaking with two voices” and cites two common examples of disincentives:

• One common problem is ignoring desired performance. When you ask a group of training professionals about the incentives for excellent performance, they'll often laugh. Too frequently, they perceive none. In fact, some contend that there is punishment associated with excellence, with the best people getting the thorniest clients or challenges.
• Another typical problem with incentives is when they conflict, that is, when the organization is rewarding behavior that crowds out the desired performance. This happens to customer service people who are often measured and applauded for the quantity of their contacts but exhorted to deliver high-quality, relationship and loyalty building interactions.²⁰

Recognizing that the BEM model was not sufficient in itself to pinpoint the causes of performance gaps within the work environment, Gilbert developed the PROBE (PRO=Profiling BE=Behavior) model.²¹ The model provides a series of questions that help performance improvement practitioners probe and assess the work environment for performance gap drivers or causes. (See Performance Support Tool 8.1.)

Lack of Repertory of Behaviors

Another cause of performance problems is people's lack of “repertory of behavior”—an accumulation of knowledge and skills gathered from experience. There are three factors that have an effect on workplace performance and make up an individual's repertory of behavior:

1. Information (skills and knowledge)
2. Instrumentation (individual capacity)
3. Motivation (motivation and expectations)

If a gap exists between desired and actual performance, and the gap is not caused by environmental support problems, the question is: “Could they do it if their lives depended on it?”²² Do they have the necessary “repertory” of skills, knowledge, capacity, motivation, and expectations?

If the answer is “No,” the performance improvement practitioner should focus on determining the skills or knowledge deficiency that interferes with the accomplishment of the desired performance. If the answer is “Yes,” the practitioner can rule out a skill or knowledge deficiency and focus on lack of individual capacity, motivation, or expectations (see Table 8.4).

Skills and Knowledge

If people “couldn't do it if their lives depended on it,”²³ the performance improvement practitioner should suspect a skill or knowledge deficiency. People cannot be expected to perform to standards if they lack the required skills or knowledge. “It is not possible for people with the right motivation, performance standards, resource tools, support, capacity, and motive to be successful performers if they don't know how to perform.”²⁴

Analyzing Skills and Knowledge

Identifying the cause of a performance gap as lack of skills and knowledge is not as simple as it sounds. First, the performance improvement practitioner needs to discover what skills and knowledge are required for the desired performance. Documentation (job or task analysis, performance standards, and other records) from the performance gap analysis should provide this information.

Then the performance improvement practitioner needs to consider the following:²⁵

• Did the employee once know how to perform as desired?
• Has the employee forgotten how to perform as desired?

Perhaps the employee possessed the necessary skills and knowledge at an earlier time, but the nature of the job has changed and she or he needs to be updated. Another possibility is to examine whether or not the employee possesses the necessary skills and knowledge, but has not had the opportunity to use them for some time.

There is another perspective on lack of knowledge and skills that requires examination: “[Maybe] there is just too much to know.”²⁶ In today's information age employees are frequently inundated with documentation or updates until it becomes “disinformation” (sic) or the employees just plain “tune it out.”

TABLE 8.4. Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model—Repertory of Behavior

Adapted from Gilbert, 1978. Used with permission.

Finally, the practitioner may want to look at the report from the environmental analysis. The workplace has to support the performer's knowledge and skills. “If you pit a trained employee against an environment that does not value the new skills and knowledge, the environment wins every time.”²⁷

Individual Capacity

Individual capacity is another component of people's repertory of behavior. Capacity “represents the individual's ability to perform the job. It is represented by a match or mismatch between the employee and the job requirement.”²⁸ Individual capacity helps to match the right person to the right job. A mismatch, or employee selection error, can cause a performance gap.

The lack of ability means that a mistake was made during employee selection. An individual was hired, transferred, or promoted into a job that the person lacked the ability to perform or to learn. In one organization, an employee was promoted to executive secretary, who was unable and unwilling to learn the new company wide project management software.

Employee selection processes also helps to avoid a potential performance gap. An individual was interviewing for a job as a customer service representative. The final question was, “Based on everything you have heard about this job, are there any areas that may be problematic?” Without delay, the person replied, “I really despise people.” Needless to say the individual was not hired, although possessing the required skills and knowledge. But the person lacked the capacity or ability to accomplish the desired performance—selling shoes to people.

Analyzing Individual Capacity

To determine whether or not a lack of individual capacity is causing a performance gap, the performance practitioner needs to look at capacity from two perspectives:²⁹

• Does the individual lack the capacity (ultimate limits to which an individual develops any function given appropriate training and environment) or ability (physical, mental, or social powers, inherited or acquired by an individual) to perform or learn?
• Do the organizational, workplace, and work environments support the individual's capacity to perform or learn?

First, the performance improvement practitioner needs to review the performance gap analysis to discover what individual capacity or ability is required to meet the desired performance requirement. The following questions may help to identify individual capacity requirements for a specific performance:

• Is it certain and proven that one must have special aptitudes, intelligence scores, verbal skills, manual dexterity, and so on, to perform in an acceptable, if not exemplary, manner?
• Is the proof so sound that there are virtually no exceptions?³⁰ The performance improvement practitioner then looks at the employee to assess whether or not the individual's physical and mental capacity match the performance requirements. A review of the gap analysis or personnel records, or an interview with the employee, may provide information on the performer's aptitude, intelligence, verbal skills, and so forth.

Finally, the performance improvement practitioner may look at the organizational and environmental analyses to find out whether the organization, workplace, and work environments support the individual's capacity or ability to perform and learn. For example, does either the organization or the environment:

• Offer flexible scheduling to accommodate people when they are at their sharpest?
• Consider the difficulty level and individual capacity when selecting someone to perform a task?
• Provide response aids, for example, large-print job aids for older workers, to determine whether lack of individual capacity is causing a performance gap?³¹

Motivation and Expectations

Motivation comes from within. The performer encourages himself or herself to succeed. Expectation also comes from within the person by expecting or believing that certain conditions or resources are required to accomplish a given task. If the employee is not motivated to perform, or feels that his or her expectations are not met, there is a good chance that there will be a gap between desired and actual performance.

It was Gilbert's contention that motivation, the third factor related to the individual, will be high if all the other five cells, especially if those related to work environment are provided. Thus he believed that evidence of low motivation is a signal to look for deficiencies in information, resources, or incentives. In communicating this concept, he stressed that factors in the work environment will not directly motivate employees. Rather, by dealing with these work environment factors, the organization can create an environment within which the employees' own intrinsic motivation can flourish.³²

Analyzing Motivation and Expectations

It is difficult at best to determine what motivates an individual to accomplish peak performance. It is almost as difficult to discover a performer's expectations. Perhaps the first step is to ask, “Is the performance system inherently so dull, unrewarding, or punishing that people must have special motives to succeed in it, even when the incentives provided are excellent?”³³ The organizational, environmental, and gap analyses should shine some light on the nature of the performance system in which the performer is functioning. The same documents should uncover what expectations the performer might have given optimal work environment.

The performance improvement practitioner may also want to interview the supervisor, manager, coworkers, and performer or observe the performer in action. However, these methods are less than scientific and rely on self-reporting from the performer) or perceptions from the supervisor, manager, and/or co-workers.

Citations

1. Rothwell, 1996, p. 79

2. Rosenberg, 1996, p. 380

3. Robinson & Robinson, 1989, p. 109

4. Rothwell, 1996, pp. 153-154

5. Rossett, 1999, p. 38

6. Robinson & Robinson, 1989

7. Gilbert, 1996, p. 18

8. Gilbert, 1996, p. 19

9. Gilbert, 1996, p. 30

10. Gilbert, 1996, p. 76

11. Stolovitch, 2010, p. 10

12. Rummler & Brache, 1995, p. 13

13. Chevalier, 2003, pp. 8-14; Chevalier, 2008, pp. 9-18

14. Binder, 2007, pp. 3-4

15. Lauer, 2002, pp. 42-43

16. Rossett, 1999, p. 38

17. Rothwell, 1996, p. 161

18. Rothwell, 1996, pp. 159-160

19. Gilbert, 1996, p. 88

20. Rossett, 1999, p. 43

21. Gilbert, 1982, pp. 21-30

22. Mager & Pipe, 1984, p. 31

23. Mager & Pipe, 1984, p. 31

24. Rosenberg, 1996, p. 375

25. Mager & Pipe, 1984, p. 17

26. Rossett, 1999, p. 45

27. Rummler, 1983, pp. 75-76

28. Dean, 1997, p. 48

29. Gilbert, 1996

30. Dean, 1997, p. 51

31. Gilbert, 1996, pp. 87-88

32. Dean, 1998, pp. 48-49

33. Dean, 1998, p. 51

References

Binder, C. (2007). The six boxes: A descendant of Gilbert's behavior engineering model. Retrieved from www.binder.riha.com/sixboxes.html.

Chevalier, R. (2003), May/June). Updating the behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 8–14.

Chevalier, R. (2008, November/December). The evolution of a performance job aid. Performance Improvement, 47(10), 9–18.

Dean, P.J. (1997). Engineering performance improvement with or without training. In P.J. Dean & D.E. Ripley (Eds.), Performance improvement pathfinders: Models for organizational learning systems (pp. 45–64). Washington, DC: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Dean, P.J. (1998). Performance improvement interventions: Methods for organizational learning. In P.J. Dean & D.E. Ripley (Eds.), Performance improvement interventions: Performance technologies in the workplace (Vol. 3, pp. 2–19). Washington, DC: International Society for Performance Improvement.

Gilbert, T.F. (1982, September). A question of performance, Part I: The PROBE model. Training and Development Journal, 43(9), 21–30.

Gilbert, T.F. (1996). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance (Tribute Ed.) Amherst, MA: HRD Press/ISPI.

Lauer, M.J. (2002, April). Doing cause analysis. Performance Improvement, 41 (4), 42–45.

Mager, R.F., & Pipe, P. (1984). Analyzing performance problems or you really oughta wanna (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: David S. Lake Publishers.

Robinson, D.G., & Robinson, J.C. (1989). Training for impact: How to link training to business needs and measure the results. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Rosenberg, M.J. (1996). Human performance technology. In R.L. Craig (Ed.), The ASTD training and development handbook: A guide to human resource development (4th ed., pp. 370–393). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Rossett, A. (1999). First things fast: A handbook for performance analysis. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Rothwell, W.J. (1996). Beyond training and development: State-of-the-art strategies for enhancing human performance. New York: AMACOM.

Rummler, G.A. (1983). Training skills isn't enough. Training, 20(8), 75–76.

Rummler, G.A., & Brache, A.P. (1995). Improving performance: Managing the white space on the organization chart (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Stolovitch, H.D. (2010, June). A leisurely approach to performance. Talent Management, 6(6), 10.