I spent last week in Taiwan where I had been invited, as a result of some other circumstances, to present a series of lectures at several universities concerning protected area stewardship. It is quite an honor to receive these invitations and I have learned much about what people in this country think about protected area planning and management of visitors.
These lectures, and the interaction with students, professionals and academics reinforce my feelings about developing critical thinking as an important professional competency. It also reinforces my perception that enhancing performance is more than simply giving workshops and then seeing participants returning to a normal work setting. Building the professional competencies needed to address the complex issues, challenges and opportunities of 21st century park management requires something more. This is not to say that conceptual skills are not a necessary condition to higher performance; they are necessary, but not sufficient.
Our current model of building performance can be loosely described as follows:
But we know now, that increased performance under this model is probably more a matter of chance than anything else. Upon returning from a workshop, seminar, shortcourse, job twinning or some similar capacity building exercise, a variety of barriers present themselves to the newly trained protected area manager. These include changed job description with different duties, jealous supervisors, a highly hierarchal organization that does not place a premium on learning, lack of incentives, little confidence by the trainee and so on.
We need to take another look at the model above. Not only does it not display what really happens, but it also downplays the role of job performance itself in increasing capacity. We need to take a systems thinking look at how capacity (in the form of enhanced professional competencies) actually works. So below is a simplified systems thinking approach to look at the relationship between capacity and performance, and what may influence performance.
A system is composed of a number of interacting components with the interactions often characterized by delays of different lengths. Here we see that building capacity does lead, potentially to enhanced performance; in systems thinking terms this is a reinforcing loop. Importantly though, enhanced performance also can lead to increased capacity or professional competency, particularly as managers gain confidence and experience in successfully addressing various issues, opportunities and challenges. This of course then potentially leads to even higher levels of performance
But in the middle of the graphic we see a couple of balancing loops, which serve to depress levels of performance. In the graphic, I have used the example of an organization’s incentive structure. Now many protected area managers are not motivated by financial incentives but rather opportunities for leadership, recognition and advancement (although research on this is needed). So if successfully struggling with complex problems is not recognized, there develops a negative feedback that dampens performance. Dampening performance, as we see in the reinforcing loop on the left leads to even further declines in performance.
In this case, a so-called ‘external” factor, an organization’s vision (for example, there are of course many other possibilities) may affect it system for awarding incentives for excellent performance. If one provides excellent performance but is not rewarded, then performance may decrease. So making changes in performance may require changing the organization’s attitude toward learning, and its incentive structure.
Of course, there are delays in this system. It may take a while before enhanced capability leads to increased performance. Incentive structures may not have a positive or negative impact for a while. The lack of an organizational vision that encourages dialogue and learning may have little impact at first on the newly trained or educated manager. But eventually, such factors will begin to take their toll, leading the organization capacity building efforts into a downward, and difficult to change, spiral.
So, the lesson of all this is for me, we need to think more systemically in terms of capacity building efforts. We simply can no longer afford to develop training workshops (“talkshops” to many) without consideration of the organizational environment into which the trainees will be placed.
More about this next time.
These lectures, and the interaction with students, professionals and academics reinforce my feelings about developing critical thinking as an important professional competency. It also reinforces my perception that enhancing performance is more than simply giving workshops and then seeing participants returning to a normal work setting. Building the professional competencies needed to address the complex issues, challenges and opportunities of 21st century park management requires something more. This is not to say that conceptual skills are not a necessary condition to higher performance; they are necessary, but not sufficient.
Our current model of building performance can be loosely described as follows:
But we know now, that increased performance under this model is probably more a matter of chance than anything else. Upon returning from a workshop, seminar, shortcourse, job twinning or some similar capacity building exercise, a variety of barriers present themselves to the newly trained protected area manager. These include changed job description with different duties, jealous supervisors, a highly hierarchal organization that does not place a premium on learning, lack of incentives, little confidence by the trainee and so on.
We need to take another look at the model above. Not only does it not display what really happens, but it also downplays the role of job performance itself in increasing capacity. We need to take a systems thinking look at how capacity (in the form of enhanced professional competencies) actually works. So below is a simplified systems thinking approach to look at the relationship between capacity and performance, and what may influence performance.
A system is composed of a number of interacting components with the interactions often characterized by delays of different lengths. Here we see that building capacity does lead, potentially to enhanced performance; in systems thinking terms this is a reinforcing loop. Importantly though, enhanced performance also can lead to increased capacity or professional competency, particularly as managers gain confidence and experience in successfully addressing various issues, opportunities and challenges. This of course then potentially leads to even higher levels of performance
But in the middle of the graphic we see a couple of balancing loops, which serve to depress levels of performance. In the graphic, I have used the example of an organization’s incentive structure. Now many protected area managers are not motivated by financial incentives but rather opportunities for leadership, recognition and advancement (although research on this is needed). So if successfully struggling with complex problems is not recognized, there develops a negative feedback that dampens performance. Dampening performance, as we see in the reinforcing loop on the left leads to even further declines in performance.
In this case, a so-called ‘external” factor, an organization’s vision (for example, there are of course many other possibilities) may affect it system for awarding incentives for excellent performance. If one provides excellent performance but is not rewarded, then performance may decrease. So making changes in performance may require changing the organization’s attitude toward learning, and its incentive structure.
Of course, there are delays in this system. It may take a while before enhanced capability leads to increased performance. Incentive structures may not have a positive or negative impact for a while. The lack of an organizational vision that encourages dialogue and learning may have little impact at first on the newly trained or educated manager. But eventually, such factors will begin to take their toll, leading the organization capacity building efforts into a downward, and difficult to change, spiral.
So, the lesson of all this is for me, we need to think more systemically in terms of capacity building efforts. We simply can no longer afford to develop training workshops (“talkshops” to many) without consideration of the organizational environment into which the trainees will be placed.
More about this next time.
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