Page 256 - Psychological Management of Individual Performance

240 enhancing performance through goal-setting and feedback interventions
participation in developing ideas for improving performance in the future. This approach
is, therefore, considered the most appropriate one for the ProMES performance enhance-
ment sessions.

ELABORATION OF THE PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACH
The discussions between supervisor and technician on feedback reports have the
objective of stimulating the technician to use ProMES as a system for self-management.
Performance enhancement sessions, most certainly at the start of the implementation
phase, will consist of two parts. The first part of a performance enhancement session
aims at overcoming resistance (resistance to attempts to performance improvement in
general or resistance to specific components of the ProMES system), while the second
part focuses on giving feedback and setting goals. For both parts, critical supervisor
behaviours will be discussed. The reason for this division into two parts is that in all
probability technicians’ understanding of the purpose and technicalities of ProMES and
of the discussions in which they are about to participate will vary considerably. Techni-
cians may differ in the extent to which they endorse the objectives underlying the system,
the extent to which they understand the system, and the extent to which they accept the
system. Therefore, in the first part the supervisor must become aware of the attitudes of
the person with whom he is dealing. For instance, a technician may come up with all
sorts of complaints that actually stem from his resistance to or lack of understanding of
the system or from both. Obstacles such as these will have to be removed before one can
begin to work towards the concept of ‘self-management’ in performance enhancement
sessions. Although the actual discussion topics in the two parts differ, the approach is
rather similar, because both parts concentrate on the detection and solution of problems.
Consonant with the ‘problem solving’ style and with one of the main techniques of the
ProMES method, a ‘discussion until consensus’ approach is recommended for both parts.
There are two steps in this approach: the joint generation and evaluation of ideas. The
first step involves jointly listing all the issues considered relevant, while the evaluation
step involves jointly sifting the wheat from the chaff. The discussion until consensus
approach has general applicability. For example, in dealing with resistance, the sources
of resistance are first identified and then discussed to ensure that everyone understands
what is meant. The origins of each source of resistance are then listed and assessed and
the main ones selected. The next step is to decide what to do about them. Actions are
proposed and assessed and the most promising ones are selected.
The second part, that of providing feedback and setting targets, will start off in the same
way, this time by identifying discrepancies between feedback and (explicit or implicit)
goals. Next, causes of these discrepancies will be generated, and so on.

PART 1: CRITICAL BEHAVIOURS IN IDENTIFYING AND OVERCOMING RESISTANCE
Part 1 involves reaching agreement about the purpose (performance improvement) and
the content (performance enhancement sessions based on ProMES feedback reports) of
the new working method. In this part the objectives of the discussions are twofold: to
make clear the reasons for introducing the new procedure (the crucial importance for the