Banish "black box" decision making

There's a lot of definitions for "black box". My definition is a decision-making process that's widely used in many companies today:

Black Box Decision Making: Sequester yourself and your team in a conference room, shut the doors, shut the windows, forget the facts, hide the data, cut the phone line, disable the internet, and turnoff all cell phones. Stay in the moment and ignore your objectives.  Better yet, don't waste time setting any objectives at all, just react. Agendas, action plans, project charters, sponsor sign-offs, and the like are also equally useless and should be disregarded, minimized, or avoided completely.  

Do not invite customers, vendors, other departments, or anyone else who may have insight into the discussion. Avoid sampling, analysis, or piloting at all costs.  Be sure to use words like "I think", "I believe", "I heard", and "I hope" when making a point or proposing a course of action. Try to forget what happened the last time you faced a similar decision or what was decided when you had the same meeting to discuss the same issue last week. 

Be sure to write two emails once a black box decision is made. The first email graciously accepts all the credit for an outstanding decision.  The second email places the blame for a series of egregious errors on colleagues, counterparts, or co-workers.  Save both emails as "drafts" until someone higher up tells you whether they like or dislike the outcome of your black box decision. Send the appropriate email along with a meeting request to start the whole process all over again.

Banishing Black Box Decision Making. Companies that want true performance avoid black box decision making like the plaque. They start by clarifying what they want and then carefully plan a course of action to get there. Jim Womack recently wrote an article for the Lean Enterprise Institute that stressed the need to clarify your purpose before making major changes. You can also check out this great case study on Inc. where a trio of entrepreneurs receive feedback on their marketing plan for a new energy drink and then used their clear vision to decide which advice to follow. Toister Performance Solutions even offers a duo of assessments to help you improve organizational performance by setting clear targets and establishing an action plan to get there.

Wineries demonstrate the Three Ways to Wow

My wife, Sally, and I recently toured Napa Valley to visit the California wineries featured in a famous 1976 tasting in Paris. California wines won both the red and white categories, despite the fact that all the judges were French. The theme made for a fun trip, but we also discovered these wineries knew the Three Ways to Wow: build relationships, solve problems, and go the extra mile.

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Three performance myths, part 3: action equals performance

Sunday was the last night in Alexandria for my training project, and I had dinner my colleagues Ken and Vin along with Vin's wife Wendy. Vin and Wendy are from Toronto, Canada, so it was interesting to hear their perspective on the global economy as well as politics in the United States. As trainers, our conversation naturally turned to the role that learning professionals are playing in today's companies. One point we all agreed on was action doesn't equal performance.

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Three performance myths, part 2: training equals performance

Tony Bingham, CEO of ASTD (the American Society for Training and Development), addressed a group of us yesterday at an informal luncheon. It was a 'town-hall' style meeting to discuss the role of training professionals in the current economy. One of the central themes was very enlightening: many executives and even training professionals are still looking at 'training' as an event-based activity that will magically produce better performance. When this inevitably doesn't happen, the credibility of the training program naturally comes into question.

There are three major problems with this approach, and it is up to us workplace learning and performance professional to engage senior leaders to fix it before these executives are forced to make budget cuts.

Problem #1: Measurement.  The goal of training programs is typically some level of increased performance. Unfortunately, training is still widely measured by number of participants, learner satisfaction, and cost. Training should be evaluated by it's ability to help increase performance, improved business results, and return on investment.

Problem #2: Commitment. Many managers are guilty of sending their employees off to training to 'be fixed'. They should be playing an active role in their employees' development, both before and after the training takes place.

Problem #3: Support. A training class can be equated to planting a seed in a garden. Without water, sun, and nutrients, that seed will never produce vegetables. Training is the same way. Learners need support, coaching, and opportunities to practice once they've attended a class to make learning stick.

Three performance myths, part 1: the myth of experience

I am currently in Alexandria, Virginia working on a project for a training industry association, the American Society for Training and Development. There are training and development experts from around the country here, so naturally our dinner conversations turn to learning and performance. An interesting topic tonight was the myth of experience.

Experience feels like a safe bet when predicting someone's future performance. We rely on it when hiring employees, justifying promotions, and even choosing vendors. But experience can be seriously misleading. To quote one of my colleagues, "You can have twenty years of leadership experience, but you might have been doing it badly for those twenty years."

A much better predictor of future performance is what someone knows and what someone can do. This is harder to assess, but infinitely more valuable.