HPI Soup - human performance improvement

Training & Development, June, 2000 by Ethan S. Sanders, Julie L. Ruggles

Too many cooks haven't spoiled the broth.

Where did HPI come from?

As we began tracing the origiins of human performance improvement for the ASTD HPI Certificate Program, we could not help feeling like Sisyphus, the legendary Greek king of Corinth who declared that he was greater than the gods. His punishment for such blasphemy was to spend eternity rolling a large boulder up a steep hill in Hades, only to have it roll back down each time just before reaching the top.

So too has been our journey into the history of HPI. Each time we declared that we had uncovered the true roots, another fact would turn up and undo the progress we'd made. It adds to the struggle that HPI has so many terms--human performance technology and performance consulting, to name a couple.

Contributors to the field of HPI such as Thomas Gilbert, Joe Harness, Geary Rummler, and Robert Mager are well established as the founders. Yet, other contributors who are equally well known and have also spent their lives learning to diagnose and solve the performance problems of organizations appear to have no association with HPI (if you believe the mainstream literature). How is it possible that such intellectual giants as Peter Drucker, W. Edwards Deming, and Kurt Lewin aren't considered part of the HPI crowd? Without the theoretical foundations they laid for management sciences and diagnostics, certain HPI concepts wouldn't exist.

After many agonizing months trying to put together all of the pieces, we're convinced that the conventional view of the origins of HPI is missing the names of important incidental contributors as well as a record of how their theories changed the nature of HPI. There's no way to prove that Theorist X had a direct influence on Theorist Y, but we believe that common sense is on our side. As you will see in our timeline, this field is relatively young. By most accounts, HPI is an outgrowth of instructional systems design and programmed instruction, which didn't really come onto the scene until after World War II. In addition, nearly all of the contributors we dug up are American by birth. Even those who aren't, such as Lewin, spent much of their professional lives in the United States, with the notable exception of Deming.

Common sense tells us that if all of these contributors lived and worked at about the same time in the same part of the world and were all well published in the same language, the origins of HPI should be credited to all of them.

Why care about the origins of HPI?

While teaching the HPI program for ASTD, we've noticed a pervasive problem among HPI students. Because most have a solid background in one of the HRD disciplines (training, OD, or career counseling), they struggle when trying to reconcile the mainstream HPI theories they're being given with the theories they've known for years.

For instance, talking about systems theory is bound to evoke images of Peter Senge or Marvin Weisbord, even though we're attributing those concepts to the seminal works of Rummler or Mager. It isn't long before students start to wonder: "Isn't this the same stuff I learned in OD but with all new labels?"

The answer is "yes" and "no." If we view HPI from the standpoint of the interventions that are offered, there's a tremendous overlap with other disciplines such as HR, OD, and training. However, if we view HPI from the standpoint of the methodology for selecting those interventions, clear differences begin to emerge. Finding a way to get students to see the differences is a challenge. We've learned that helping them view the profession from a historical perspective is the first step in their journey toward an HPI mindset.

What's soup got to do with it?

The ingredients for chicken soup can vary tremendously. Everyone who makes it will swear that their soup is the most traditional, tastes the best, or has the greatest medicinal value. If you aren't a soup connoisseur, such distinctions are often difficult to see. That makes it difficult to decide the best way to cook chicken soup, though it's an important staple.

As you read through the category descriptions, theoretical contributions, list of published works, and associations that exist among HPI contributors, think of soup. The ingredients include behaviorism, diagnostic and analytical systems, organizational learning and instructional systems design, organization development and change management, systems theory, evaluation, and management sciences. But, to date, no one really knows how much or in what combination those ingredients are used by the typical performance consultant (if there is such a thing). Some of the ingredients are probably part of the soup stock; others tend to be sprinkled in as needed.

For example, it's impossible to imagine a performance consultant who doesn't regard systems thinking and analytical diagnostics (whether according to Harless, Rummler, Peter Pipe, Ron Zemke, or Marvin Weisbord) as a cornerstone of his or her practice. Likewise, behaviorist theory is so pervasive in the American culture (thanks to B .F. Skinner) that any performance consultant practicing in the United States must look at strategies for motivating employees to accept required interventions, even if the initial performance problem isn't closely related to how employees am behaving. On the other hand, how much a performance consultant relies on OD theory, ISD theory, or evaluation theory probably varies greatly.