Is the unexamined life worth living? Yeah, I'm taking about Performance Indicators
Socrates (perhaps Plato, as well) asked if the unexamined life was worth living, but there was more to this famous question. The whole quote goes something like this: "The overly examined life has not been lived and the unexamined life is not worth living."
I watched this really average quality video with an above average message called, "The Sid Story." Dennis Franz played the grumpy, set-in-his ways, supervisor Sid and an efficiency expert comes in to help his night shift team out. He is able to turn performance around just by telling individuals their performance score. Yes, it's a movie, but research does prove that when people know someone is paying attention and you are going to give them some type of immediate feedback that makes sense, performance will be affected. In essence, when things are observed, they tend to have better outcome - therefore, we can ascertain that behaviors improve, if the subject knows they are being watched.
What research could I be referring to?
Any one of the Hawthorne Effect studies, research on the "Observer Effect, " or research on immediate classroom feedback. Many different streams of research support the claim that people work better under observation, and prefer immediate feedback compared to delayed or none.
Tell me about Behavioral Science Technology, Inc.
BST affirms there is a direct correlation between the number of field observations and injury rates. As one goes up, the other goes down. Behavior Based Safety observations capturing at-risk behaviors without blaming individuals give an opportunity to coach them before an accident happens. (more to follow on observations and things I've learned from BST in the near future)
What kind of things should be measured?
Using metrics to improve performance is nothing new, and I certainly have room to improve in this area. I fill metrics and KPIs out on a weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis, but the data is predetermined. I basically have templates that I need to fill out that consist of worker hours per division and how many errors or events they've had in a given frequency. Observation indicators look at who has been performing them (members of the leadership team are required to perform them) and what they are telling. Analysis is performed on the top hitting areas, including reading the comments associated with them and developing any themes or messages out of the data.
What do you do with all of the Performance Indicator data?
Ideally, it is used to improve problem areas. Remember that there are only two ways to improve Human Performance: Improve Communications and/or Reinforce Desired Behaviors. Everything I've ever seen to improve error reduction falls into these two categories in some way. This is in the area of communicating those problem areas, and letting people know where they stand. Remember the Sid Story clip from above? Sid's team needed to know where they stand and how they compare to a standard or baseline, even if it is only trending their performance to compare against themselves. When they know the score, they can (and will likely want to) improve. Establishing a baseline prior to an action is an important way to prove something is working or not. One of my favorite comedians, Demetri Martin, put together a stand up act years ago called, "If I." If you have the time to watch all the individual parts, I assure you it's worth your time, but if not, check out part five here. [Warning on some language]. Have you ever wondered would it help you out if you built metrics to improve you personal life? Demetri has an awesome story with a funny and unexpected outcome.
How fun would watching sports be with no indicators or stats? The entire stock market trading concept is based on prediction from indicators - gambling can be based on gut feelings, but people track data (think horse or dog racing books). As humans we have improved our live with the knowledge of trends and statistics, and my estimation is the examined life is pretty cool, and well worth living.