The Disconnect Between Decisions to Improve Performance
and the Causes of Performance
By
Heero Hacquebord
1. Introduction:
Decision‐making with respect to improving performance and the future is prediction, and so is
leadership. For example, was the energy crisis a rational predictive event 30 years ago? Or was it
without prevention, unpredictable and random. If so, then we must believe that man is a mere
moron with no theory, knowledge or predictive capability, and is powerless to influence his
environment or future. No reasonable person accepts that. Man has the power and
responsibility to shape and influence his future.
At the outset my principle is that people in business, education and government make decisions
to create positive outcomes for themselves and their organizations.
There are basically three categories of decisions:
1. Decide to take some form of action.
2. Decide to take no action, i.e. leave things alone.
3. Decide not to decide. That is the same as going into a mental state of paralysis.
Should we elect option 1 above, we are making the prediction that the action we decide to take
will cause the outcome we desire. If we elect option 2 above, we are making the prediction that
taking no action will cause continuation of outcomes we are currently satisfied with.
If we elect option 3 above, we are predicting that an escape from reality will make us better off,
more like paralysis of management.
The following premises apply:
• Decisions are made with the goal to improve future performance.
• Decisions must be based on an understanding of the causes of performance.
2. Origins of Performance
In order to understand how to make better decisions to improve future performance, we need
to understand what causes performance. There can only be two major components that affect
performance independently, or interactively, and that is the systems that are being used in the
creation of the business outcomes, and/or the people working in and around these systems. The
following diagrams show the possible causes of performance.
© 2008 by Heero Hacquebord. All rights reserved 1

Assumption 1.
Performance is caused
by the individual only System Individual
Figure 1
In figure 1 only the individual affects the past and present performance and the system has no
affect, or its affect is totally controlled by the individual. In this instance the performance of an
individual is consistent across organizations, because he or she has complete control of
performance.
Interaction between system and individual
Assumption 2.
Performance is caused
By the individual and the
Interaction between the System Individual
individual and the system
Figure 2
In figure 2 the individual and the interaction between the individual and the system govern the
performance. In this instance the performance of an individual is not consistent across
organizations, because he or she does not have complete control of performance.
Assuming that performance can be measured in metrics, as is often the case; the causes of past
and present performance can be formulated as follows:
For Figure 1: Performance P = I ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐A
For figure 2: Performance P = (I&S) + I ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ B
(Note that the system by itself is inert. A system produces nothing unless people are involved
© 2008 by Heero Hacquebord. All rights reserved 2

Where P = performance as observed or measured;
I = the affects of performance caused by the individual; and
(I &S) = the interaction between the individual and the system.
In hundreds of seminars to thousands of people, in multiple countries I have asked the
following question:
“Are the causes of performance more like figure 1 or figure 2? Overwhelmingly, without
exception everyone agreed that performance in the real world of business, education, and
government is like figure 2. Although we all agree that the amount of interaction is not always
the same, interaction always exists.
3. Decisions and actions to improve performance.
With our premise in mind that decisions are made with the goal to improve future performance,
we now consider “some” popular decisions and actions that are taught in courses and seminars,
and applied in business and government to improve performance:
i. Conduct performance appraisals that measure the individual’s performance, and
rank, grade or rate the individual on a scale, or in comparison to his or her peers.
ii. If the last data point is different from the previous one, and it is considered
unacceptable, then action has to be taken to find the cause of the last data point.
iii. Identify “high performers” reward and benchmark them; identify “low performers”
punish or humiliate them.
iv. Rank order the numbers, physicians etc, based on outcomes data.
v. Benchmark high performing companies
vi. Take immediate action on any undesirable outcome…find the culprit!
vii. Improve performance by establishing numerical goals for individuals, and hold these
individuals accountable.
viii. Establish dashboard indicators and balanced scorecards, whereby action is to be
taken on metrics that “stand out” or do not meet pre‐established numerical goals.
Each of the above actions can only be effective if performance were to be caused as indicated in
figure 1. Considering that everyone agrees that figure 2 is the appropriate model, we have to be
intellectually honest in agreeing that we tend to apply remedies for improving performance for
which there is no disease, or better yet, turning knobs that are not connected to the “real”
picture. The reason is that without understanding the affects of the interaction between the
individual and the system on performance, we will always run the risk of applying inappropriate
methods for performance improvement. The reader may be frustrated and some people even
have emotional reactions against this logic, because the points i through viii are what we have
always done and do so well, believing that they work…but the definition of insanity still prevails,
i.e. continuing to do what we have done in the past expecting better results. Our economy has
been on a decline for the last 30 years, if these decisions and actions have not worked in the last
30 years, what makes anyone think they that they will work in the future, even if we did the
same thing, but by a different name. The frustration is that we do not generally know what to
do differently…this could become the topic for future discussions.
© 2008 by Heero Hacquebord. All rights reserved 3