It’s About Accomplishment, Not Behaviour
I had a conversation recently with someone worried about behaviours in their organisation; they were concerned that what they were seeing might harm performance. My response surprised them: I asked whether there was actually an accomplishment problem.
This question comes directly from Thomas Gilbert’s first leisurely theorem, articulated in Human Competence. Gilbert argued that we should focus on accomplishment, not behaviour, because it’s the delivery of valued outputs that matters to an organisation (Gilbert, 1978). Behaviours only become relevant when accomplishment is in deficit. If a team is hitting its targets, if the work is getting done to the required standard, then observable behaviours are, frankly, beside the point.
Note: This is with an eye purely on organisational performance. There are, of course, behaviours that are not appropriate in the workplace and require disciplinary action. To avoid any confusion, I am not talking about these things here.
Gilbert was scathing about what he called the “cult of behaviour” in learning and development; our professional tendency to default to behaviour change as though it were the only lever available to us. There are times when behaviour change is precisely what’s needed, of course, but we reach for it far too often and far too quickly. Environmental factors, such as inadequate tools, insufficient time, unclear expectations, poor incentives, and unsupportive management, account for a larger proportion of performance problems than individual capability gaps (Gilbert, 1978). When we underpin every intervention with behaviour, we set ourselves up for disappointment.
Even when a genuine behavioural issue exists, training is rarely the solution. If someone has the knowledge, has practised sufficiently to demonstrate competence, but still isn’t performing, then the answer lies elsewhere. That’s a management conversation, not a training one. Training cannot fix unwillingness; it can only address inability.
So the next time someone raises concerns about behaviours in your organisation, resist the urge to start designing interventions. Ask first whether there’s an accomplishment deficit. If there isn’t, leave well alone. If there is, work systematically through potential causes: environmental factors first, then group dynamics, and only then individual behaviour. You’ll save time, money, and the credibility of your function.
References
Gilbert, T.F. (1978) Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance. McGraw Hill.