Influence Analysis is about the cause and effect of performance. This analysis examines the primary influences (cause) on performance and their impact (effect) on successful achievement of outcomes with the purpose of implementing effective interventions to close gaps, remove barriers, and enable optimal results.

With all organizations and teams, there are external and internal influences that affect the ability to perform and deliver results. Some influences can be controlled and shaped, while others can only be anticipated, hypothesized, and mitigated for. External influences come in the form of market/industry landscape, political/economic climate, competitors, and trends – organizations are less able to affect these, yet they require awareness and responsiveness. Internal influences come in the form of expectations, talent, culture, structure, process, tools, technology – organizations are fully able to affect these, and they demand informed engineering, constant monitoring, and relevant adaptation.

Misinterpretation and misdiagnosis of performance problems and influences is one of the costliest mistakes an organization, leader, or team can make, and it’s one that is made too often. Why? Typically, because performance and it’s influences are not fully understood, it’s easy to fall prey to the illusion of being fixed, and bias says it will take too long or cost too much to resolve. And what does this lead to – inappropriate, inept, and unnecessary solutions that have little to zero impact on the problem.

The most notorious and repeated misdiagnosis organizations make shows up as – “we need training” – which is typically an assumption-fueled jump to a prescribed solution….and to add salt to the wound, it’s usually based on limited to no performance analysis. And quite often, the prescriber of the solution is unaware that there should be a diagnosis that led to this training intervention – where analysis has shown the influence on performance is a lack of skills or knowledge. In other words…..training solutions are only appropriate when the cause or influence of under-performance is a lack of skills and knowledge.

If all that isn’t enough to get your attention, here are some nuggets to digest: training/learning is generally the most expensive performance intervention, it is prescribed/requested as a performance solution 90% of the time, and it is the right performance solution only 15% of the time. This is profound.

• Sales are down from last year – we need to train them better. What about the fact that inventory is limited and product quality has declined?
• Engagement scores haven’t improved in three quarters – they need job training, what about the fact that managers don’t know what to prioritize and the systems they use are antiquated?
• We aren’t getting the data we need to make decisions – retrain them on the software, what about the fact that the data can’t be combined into a single report and the data available is not always accurate?

Training, more training, or retraining will not fix these symptoms and will certainly not improve performance. Training someone on sales techniques, won’t create inventory or product quality; and training someone to use a system that is broken, won’t repair the system.

To avoid making costly diagnosis errors, stop reacting to symptoms, relying on assumptions of what you think is going on, and applying knee-jerk quick fixes that won’t solve the issue. Symptoms are not problems, they are signposts, indicators, and signals. Symptoms are the outward manifestation or expression of something deeper, hidden, or more complex. Interventions applied to symptoms or selected based on incorrect or haphazard analysis, bias, or assumption are ineffectual, distracting, and wasteful. They cost organizations in time, energy, money, and engagement.

It’s this reality that requires quantitative and qualitative ‘performance analysis tradecraft’ to identify and inform targeted, appropriate, and thorough interventions to achieve optimal results. Performance problems and cures cannot be left to assumption or impulse, they must be intentionally examined and engineered. To get on the path to performance and accelerate improvement, get knowledgeable about the influences on performance, ask the right questions about the influences, be honest, candid, and transparent about the root of the performance problems, and quit allowing impulsive, triage, or ‘good enough’ be acceptable solutions. Or – hard-truth – admit that optimal results are not what you seek, or they require more diligence than you’re willing to put forth.

PDG’s ‘Performance Analysis Tradecraft’ integrates analytic best practices and disciplines found in the fields of national security and intelligence, commercial business intelligence, and Human Performance Improvement (HPI) into a comprehensive suite of assessments, diagnostics, and evaluations to examine internal and external performance influences to provide critical and actionable insights to help decision-making and drive results.