THE SHOULD-IS-CAUSE LOGIC

The second element in our mental model is the SHOULD-IS-CAUSE logic used to analyze business and performance situations. When partnering with a client on a strategic initiative, you will almost certainly need more information if you intend to define and align the four needs in the hierarchy. What information is important and relevant? What information, though available, is not necessary for the situation at hand? Most important, what information is required but currently unknown? Questions like these led to the creation of a tool to guide performance consultants as they obtain information needed to address a specific business problem or opportunity. This tool is called a Gaps Map (Robinson & Robinson, 2005).

TABLE 2.1 Need Hierarchy Terminology

Why this name? Because as a performance consultant you seek to understand what gaps exist between what SHOULD be occurring and what IS occurring; gaps are what you want to close. The tool we offer is designed to be used like a map, guiding you through the process. Consider this image: You are seated in a car with one of your clients driving to a destination that is a goal for you and your client. This is a small car with only two seats. Your client sits behind the wheel, driving the car, while you are on the passenger side helping to navigate. The client is the decision maker and has determined the destination. However, you have GPS on your smartphone. This is your map. You use it to provide your client with suggestions about which roads to take and what cities to avoid. In this way your role is to guide, and your client’s role is to decide as you consider the optimal route to take.

Such is the purpose of a Gaps Map. However, with a Gaps Map, the information you obtain focuses on the SHOULD (goal), IS (current state), and CAUSE (factors that may help or hinder achieving the goals that are established). The Gaps Map is designed to provide a structure and a logic that

ensures the business and performance SHOULDs, as expressed by the client, are identified in specific terms;

organizes relevant SHOULD-IS-CAUSE information that is known about the situation; and

determines what information is relevant but unknown, so that you discover what information must be obtained to determine workable solutions. The Gaps Map helps you avoid jumping to a solution—an approach filled with risks, including the allocation of resources with no or limited results.

Let’s discuss the different areas contained in the Gaps Map illustrated in Figure 2.2.

Business Need and Client

As we have discussed, a business need is an operational or strategic goal that is measured in a quantifiable manner. The Gaps Map asks you to identify the business need, comparable to determining the destination on a road trip. You also identify the specific name or position of the individual(s) who qualify as the client(s) for achieving these business results. Keep in mind that sometimes we begin our work with someone who is a contact and not the true client. The Gaps Map is asking for the name or position of the individual who should be the client. This is the person who owns accountability for achieving the business results you are focusing on.

Employee Group

An employee group is the group of people who share a common role or job and who, through their day-to-day performance, most contribute to the required business results. Examples are account representatives, project managers, team leads, and production line operators. Employee groups are not departments or functions. The Finance department is not an employee group; rather, it is a composite of several employee groups including “accountants” and “analysts.” As a performance consultant, you identify the specific employee group or groups who are relevant to the situation. If the business goal is broad, more than one employee group may contribute to achieving that business goal.

FIGURE 2.2 Components of a Gaps Map

Consider a manufacturing business goal to increase production output. Multiple employee groups would be required to achieve this goal, including production line operators, production planners, and maintenance technicians. As a performance consultant, you want to unbundle these groups, focusing on each separately. This approach will result in a unique Gaps Map for each employee group. Why is this necessary? Because while the business SHOULD and IS information may be identical, the on-the-job performance (accomplishments and behaviors) required of each employee group will be different. What line operators must do to increase production output will surely be different from what the production planners must do. It is also probable that the CAUSE factors will differ for each employee group.

Business SHOULD and IS

These boxes in the Gaps Map call for the quantifiable measures for both the goal (the SHOULD) and the current state (the IS). Most business needs are measured in multiple ways, so there will likely be more than one metric for each business need. It is important that each measure contain both the unit of measure and the numeric. For example, it would be insufficient to indicate “revenue goals met” as a business SHOULD; instead, indicate “revenue of 10 percent over last year” or some other numerical goal. Generally, the true clients for a business need can provide this information—this is, after all, what they are responsible for achieving.

Performance SHOULD and IS

This portion of the Gaps Map is where you really add value as a performance consultant. While clients know the requirements for the business, they often are less certain of the behavioral performance required of individuals in their group to achieve these goals. It is important to identify both the accomplishments the employee group must produce as well as the on-the-job practices required to achieve those accomplishments.

Let’s consider a sales organization with a business need to achieve revenue and gross margin goals; the numeric for each of these is known. The account executives are key to achieving these results. One accomplishment expected of them is that they build and maintain strong customer relationships; another accomplishment is to close sales. If this were all they were told, people new to the account executive position would likely ask, “How do I do that effectively?” That is where the specific practices or behaviors are important to identify. What do account executives, who have success in building relationships and closing sales, actually do? And how is that different from what is done by more typical account executives who are not producing optimal results? The Gaps Map asks you to identify the answers to these two questions before moving ahead with any solutions. By comparing the SHOULD performance with the current performance (the IS), you are identifying what gaps exist in performance.

CAUSEs

CAUSEs are factors that either enable or obstruct performance of people and the achievement of business goals. The Gaps Map is asking about causes internal to the organization (referred to as organizational capability needs) and causes that are internal to individuals (individual capability needs). This map also asks about factors that are external to the organization. These are factors that are outside the control of any individual or group within the organization, yet have implications for success.

The one addition is that in the Gaps Map “factors internal to the organization” are divided into two categories: those outside the client’s control and those within the client’s control. This is important because factors within the client’s control are candidates for solutions that typically are easy to implement. People often refer to these as “low-hanging fruit” because, like apples hanging low on a tree, they are easy to reach. An example would be if employees in a specific job are challenged to perform as required because they currently lack authority to access important customer data. The client could make a decision that in the future these employees will have access to that customer information. This solution is quick and easy to implement with nominal cost implications.

Factors that are outside the client’s control, but still within the organization itself, are more challenging to change. In this instance, clients need to influence others in the organization about the actions they believe should be taken, requiring increased time and energy. Returning to our previous example, let’s say the problem is not with access to customer data; rather, the data are inaccurate or incomplete. In this case, a solution could require the client to work with the Information Systems group, a group outside the organizational authority of the client. This task will involve some discussions and, perhaps, negotiations regarding the time and cost to create a database that will better meet the client’s needs.

GAPS MAP: HERE’S HOW IT’S DONE

The map displayed in Figure 2.3 depicts a situation in a large multinational corporation that manufactures and sells consumer products globally. One day, the VP of manufacturing contacted the chief learning officer (CLO) of the organization and said, “We need some training for our maintenance mechanics. We also may need to change our selection process for this job in order to improve our operating efficiency in the plants.”

Take a moment to reflect on this request and the Need Hierarchy described earlier in this chapter. What need or needs within the hierarchy did the VP include in the initial request? There was a business need (improve our operating efficiency in the plants), an organizational solution (change our selection process), and a capability solution (training for our maintenance mechanics). However, no information was offered about performance needs, factors external to the organization, organizational capability factors, or the individual capability of the maintenance mechanics. Therefore, the CLO engaged the VP in a reframing discussion. They decided that more information about the situation should be obtained. The Gaps Map in Figure 2.3 contains that additional information.

BUSINESS NEED AND CLIENT

At the top of the Gaps Map, on the left, is the business need focused on in this initiative. Regarding the client, we learned quickly that there were two levels of client: the VP was the primary client, but each of the facility managers was also a client. This is because each of the eight plants located around the globe was a unique environment, with the facility manager ultimately accountable for achieving operating efficiency in that plant.

FIGURE 2.3 Gaps Map for Manufacturing Situation

EMPLOYEE GROUP

The employee group of greatest interest to the VP was the maintenance mechanics. In the course of the project, we learned of other employee groups who had a role to play in improving operating efficiency; however, for purposes of this example, we will focus only on one group of employees—the maintenance mechanics.

BUSINESS INFORMATION

Five metrics were used to measure the achievement of the business need to improve operating efficiency. The same metrics were used to measure current results. When comparing the SHOULD and IS measures, it is clear multiple business gaps did exist. No wonder the VP was concerned.

PERFORMANCE INFORMATION

The employee group consisted of approximately two hundred maintenance mechanics worldwide. In the initial meeting with the VP, the CLO asked, “What must maintenance mechanics do more, better, or differently if the efficiency goals are to be achieved?” The VP acknowledged this was a good question and provided some descriptive but vague information. The CLO then asked, “Are any maintenance mechanics achieving these goals on an individual basis? If yes, what are they doing differently than other mechanics who are not achieving goals?” The VP, again, acknowledged the value of the question and went on to say that he was certain some maintenance mechanics were achieving goals individually. However, he did not know what they were doing differently and would value having that information.

This is an example of how performance consultants can use questions to change the discussion away from solutions to a discussion that focuses on performance and business results. When the CLO asked questions about high-performing or star maintenance mechanics, the VP became aware of the type of information required to make sound decisions about solutions and was willing to gather that information before making decisions about solutions. This shift in focus is a process we call reframing, discussed in Chapter 4.

Suffice it to say, this reframing discussion with the VP resulted in an agreement to do an assessment for purposes of obtaining performance SHOULD and IS information. A high-level summary of some of the findings is noted in Figure 2.3. Although the performance accomplishments expected of the star and typical maintenance mechanics were the same, clear differences emerged in the behaviors each group used to support these accomplishments. For example, star maintenance mechanics worked independently, were action oriented, and utilized a root cause approach to solving equipment problems. Contrast these practices with those of the typical maintenance mechanics, who were reluctant to take action and used a “Let me try this and see if it works” approach. These gaps in on-the-job performance were contributing to the current shortfall in business results. But what was needed to have more maintenance mechanics demonstrate the SHOULD performance? To answer that question, we needed to determine causes for the business gaps together with reasons for the performance gap of the maintenance mechanics.

CAUSE INFORMATION

As displayed in Figure 2.3, the problems in this manufacturing organization had multiple causes. A tight labor market was a factor external to the organization. The job of maintenance mechanic was highly complex, requiring a great deal of technical and interpersonal skill. The labor pool available in the marketplace was limited, with many companies competing to hire the same people. This was an external factor that could not be changed by the manufacturing plant alone. A corporate strategy for acquiring additional maintenance mechanics, despite this external challenge, was needed.

When organizational factors within the client’s control were investigated, the two levels of clients became very important. The insufficient coaching and reinforcement by supervisors in a plant was a factor that facility managers could control. The coaching was intended to overcome the mechanics’ reticence to take action on their own. The facility managers could take actions to develop the coaching and reinforcement skills of the maintenance supervisors and to hold them accountable for using those skills.

Organizational factors outside the control of the facility managers, but within the control of the VP of manufacturing, focused on the supply chain. Challenges in obtaining replacement parts and accurate records were problems for multiple facilities. The VP needed to take action and work with supply chain management to address these problems.

Finally, there was the issue of the capability of the maintenance mechanics. This company had invested in computerized diagnostic tools for the mechanics to use in troubleshooting equipment problems. Unfortunately, some mechanics—but not all—lacked skill in how to operate the software and interpret data obtained from these tools.

SOLUTIONS

Once the root causes were identified, the CLO and the VP could decide on the solutions needed to address the business and performance gaps. The goal is to select the “right” solutions—those solutions that will address one or more of the root causes. As illustrated in Figure 2.3, each of the four causes resulted in a unique solution.

To address the tight labor pool for maintenance mechanics, the organization developed an apprentice program. Now they could supplement their external hires with those individuals whom they developed internally. To address the low skill of some mechanics regarding their use of the diagnostic tools, a technology-enabled, skill-building program was implemented. Actions were also taken to develop the supervisors’ coaching skills and hold them accountable for providing greater coaching support of the maintenance mechanics. The VP of manufacturing worked with supply chain management to address problems in obtaining replacement parts.

Bottom line: The client’s original request transitioned during the initial reframing discussion, as did the role of the CLO, who moved from solution provider to strategic partner. The CLO identified the factors causing the problem and what was needed to solve it. If the CLO had only implemented solutions the client had requested, the operating efficiency problem would not have been resolved. The solutions ultimately implemented were different from those originally proposed. You may recall that the VP originally requested a change in selection of maintenance mechanics. This was not the problem; rather, it was a need to generate a greater number of qualified candidates. The apprentice program was a solution used to address this need.

Returning to the original request, the client had asked for some type of training for the maintenance mechanics. Although learning was a part of the solution package, it was a much more targeted and specific learning requirement than the client had originally envisioned. The CLO, working in the role of performance consultant, used the logic of the Gaps Map to navigate the project successfully.