When they moved, they brought along all their existing office furniture, state-of-the-art computers, and other equipment. They settled into their wonderful new space and continued with their work. After a week or two, their manager reviewed the production reports and was surprised to see that the team’s error rates had noticeably increased. He searched in vain for an obvious reason and could only conclude that the move had somehow disrupted the clerks’ usual accuracy.

When this alarming trend continued through several reporting cycles, the manager decided the best course of action would be to retrain this group of skilled high performers because they had obviously forgotten how to do their jobs. So all the data entry clerks were retrained. And, as you may have guessed, their sub-standard performance continued with subsequent reports showing no reduction in error rates.

In desperation, the manager asked the performance consulting department for help and a consultant paid him a visit. After the manager brought her up-to-date on events, she asked to see all the reports from after the move and several sets from before to compare the clerks’ performance.

After reviewing the reports, the consultant shared her findings with the manager. In the reports generated since the move to the new building, she noticed a definite pattern of increased errors in the late afternoons. The manager could not immediately provide an explanation for this, so the consultant asked if she could spend a few days on the floor to observe the clerks and learn more about their jobs.

When her observations were complete, the consultant met with the manager to again share her findings. Those large, bright windows really let in lots of light. In the late afternoons, as the sun began to set, it created glare on the clerks’ computer screens. Even though they knew their software well, it was easy to make mistakes and not see them; hence, the increased error rates.

The manager was somewhat embarrassed to have missed this obvious reason for poor performance, but the consultant helped him see the value of another pair of eyes when trying to diagnose a problem from inside the situation. She pointed out the power of observation in analyzing performance problems and confided that she never fully believed anything her clients told her until she went to see for herself. The manager forgave himself his oversight and was pleased to discover that window coverings were a relatively quick and inexpensive solution to a critical performance obstacle (Addison & Haig, 2006, p. 35).