16.3. Step 3: Job/Performer Level

A key aspect of Phase 3 involves the identification of one or more jobs critical to the successful implementation of the process improvements designed during Step 2. For each job, have the Process Team (along with job incumbents and supervisors) describe the outputs and goals required by the new process. Then ask the team to identify the environmental support that must be provided to the people in these jobs.

To display the outputs and goals, we recommend that you use the Job Model format presented in Chapter Twelve. To identify the resources, feedback, rewards, and training that should support the new job responsibilities, we suggest that you use the Human Performance System questions listed in Chapter Six.

This three-step process will enable the participants and others to see the benefits of addressing all Three Levels of Performance. They will work with some of the pivotal Three Levels tools—the Relationship Map, the Process Map, the Job Model, and the Human Performance System questions. Most important, they will resolve a critical issue facing the organization and will create a foundation upon which continuous improvement (see Chapter Thirteen) can be built.

We don't, however, want you to think that the Three Levels can be used effectively only in a "bundled" fashion. A second answer to "How do I start?" is by applying one or two of the Three Levels tools in a targeted application. In addition to the more comprehensive projects described earlier (especially in Chapters Eight and Ten), organizations have successfully applied individual Three Levels tools in ways such as these:

• Relationship and Process Mapping were used to realign an entire telecommunications company to increase the focus on the customer.

• Relationship and Process Mapping were used to strengthen and formalize the historical "handshake" relationship between an electronics manufacturer's U.S. headquarters and a foreign subsidiary, which is projected to quadruple its revenues in three years.

• Relationship Maps were used in an aerospace company's orientation training to quickly show new employees where they fit into the big picture.

• Organization, Process, and Job measures were used in a paper mill to get everyone from the mill manager to the machine operators rowing in the same direction.

• Role/Responsibility Matrices and Job Models were used to clarify the responsibilities of branch managers in a consumer loan business and to clarify the responsibilities of four levels of management in a fourteen-hundred-store retail organization.

• The Human Performance System was used by a publishing company to diagnose and remove some of the causes of high turnover among its salespeople.

• Job Models and the Human Performance System were used as the basis for the design of a performance appraisal system in a government agency.