Читать книгу The Performance Principle - Mackenzie Kyle - Страница 3

IN SEPTEMBER 1983, I started my second year of studying sciences at university. My courses comprised predominantly math, chemistry, and physics, but for my one elective I chose a psychology course, in the hope that it would add very little to my workload.

In one of the first classes, I watched a short film documenting some guy named B. F. Skinner working with a severely physically and mentally disabled young girl. The girl was about four years old, and due to her challenges she had never walked. Over the course of five hours, using only a clothesline and ice cream, Skinner taught the little girl to walk on her own.

I was mesmerized. What magic was this Skinner fellow working? And how could I learn to do it? My throwaway elective soon became my favorite course, and that class kicked off my lifelong fascination with understanding why people do the things they do. Over the years, I learned just how much real science there was related to this topic and I discovered the large body of knowledge that can assist us with what we sometimes refer to as performance management.

So, why write a book about it? As the old saying goes, “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” During my consulting career, I’ve had the opportunity to translate elements of the body of knowledge about performance management into practical tools and techniques that I, and the teams I’ve worked with, have used to help people and organizations improve their situation with regard to real problems. The translation from theory to practice is not always straightforward, but this book is intended to provide some useful perspective on how to make that transition. Written as a novel, this book offers a realistic depiction of some situations we all face and illustrates in a practical way how to apply some basic principles to improve them.

Mackenzie Kyle

Vancouver, British Columbia

September 2015