INTRODUCTION
Stop Jumping to Solutions and Make Performance Your Business!

Consider these scenarios, representative of what occurs frequently in organizations today:

Sales representatives in a tech company are charged with selling large enterprise-wide systems. While their revenue goals are being met, the profitability goals associated with these sales are not being achieved. The VP of enterprise sales and his HR strategic partner have decided to change the compensation plan so it puts more emphasis on making profitable sales.

Safety violations are increasing in a manufacturing organization. A decision has been made to have all operators and their supervisors participate in a refresher course on safety. This is a program these individuals attended just one year ago that was never measured to determine if employees’ on-the-job performance had actually changed.

Management in a hotel chain is concerned about the low customer satisfaction ratings obtained for the past four months. This is the same time period when a large number of new hires were placed into front-desk positions. A senior leader asks the chief talent officer to meet to discuss changing the selection criteria and process used to hire people into the front-desk clerk position. Clearly this process is not identifying people who possess good customer contact skills.

What do these scenarios share in common?

1. They use a jump-to-solution approach, quickly moving from an identified problem to a request for solution.

2. Root causes for the problem are not identified before agreeing on a solution.

3. And, as evidenced in the second scenario, measurement of results is neither planned for nor completed.