According to Wikipedia, the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) defines Human Performance Technology as: “a systematic approach to improving productivity and competence, uses a set of methods and procedures—and a strategy for solving problems—for realizing opportunities related to the performance of people. More specific, it is a process of selection, analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of programs to most cost-effectively influence human behavior and accomplishment. It is a systematic combination of three fundamental processes: performance analysis, cause analysis, and intervention selection, and can be applied to individuals, small groups, and large organizations” (ISPI, 2012 AU23: The in-text citation "ISPI, 2012" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). A simpler definition of Human Performance Technology is a systematic approach to improving individual and organizational performance (Pershing, 2006 AU24: The in-text citation "Pershing, 2006" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ). A common misunderstanding of the word technology with regards to Human Performance Technology, is that it relates to information technologies. In Human Performance Technology, the term technology , refers to the specialized aspects of the field of Human Performance. Technology: the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry, as a branch of knowledge dealing with engineering or applied science. In terms of origins of Human Performance Technology, Wikipedia further explained that the field also referred to as Performance Improvement, emerged from the fields of educational technology and instructional technology in the 1950s and 1960s. In the post war period, application of the Instructional Systems Design (ISD) model was not consistently returning the desired improvements to organizational performance. This led the emergence of Human Performance Technology as a separate field from Instructional Systems Design, in the late 1960s to early 1970s when the National Society for Programmed Instruction was renamed the National Society for Performance and Instruction (NSPI) and then again to the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) in 1995. (Chyung, 2008 AU25: The in-text citation "Chyung, 2008" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. ) indicated that Human Performance Technology evolved as a systemic and systematic approach to address complex types of performance issues and to assist in the proper diagnosis and implementation of solutions to close performance gaps among individuals. The origins of HPT can be primarily traced back to the work of Thomas Gilbert, Geary Rummler, Karen Brethower, Roger Kaufman, Bob Mager, Donald Tosti, Lloyd Homme and Joe Harless. They (Gilbert and Rummler in particular) were the pioneers of the field.
Published in Chapter:
Storytelling: An African Leadership Journey of Performance Improvement Innovation
Lucy Surhyel Newman (Independent Researcher, Nigeria)
Copyright: © 2020
|Pages: 30
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-3673-5.ch008
Abstract
This case study presents an insight into an African leadership journey over a period of two decades within a professional storytelling format, from 1999 to 2019. It provides an overview of the subject's application of germinal and emerging theoretical concepts in performance improvement innovation, as a female executive of African descent and a working mother. For context, the chapter presents the case study subject's leadership trajectory from early life, with insights to her personal orientation on related issues via an interview with the subject, testimonials, and organizational outcomes of the case study subject's leadership styles. The chapter closes with emerging challenges facing performance innovation practice in Africa, solutions and recommendations for further action, leveraging the case study subject's experience as a performance improvement practitioner. Although the case study presents an African experience, the principles can be explored across cultural and environmental settings, based on this self-application narrative