What is Human Performance?
Have you ever heard this before…“Human Performance (HP)…I have no idea what that even means.”
Dr. Todd Conklin is quoted as saying, “when something bad happens (safety related or otherwise), the organization has two choices: to blame and punish or to learn and improve…they cannot do both.”
In an effort to learn and improve, I’ve always thought that understanding Human Performance is one of the keys to success. Over the last 20 years I have heard this phrase time and time again — “Human Performance (HP)…I have no idea what that even means…”. I’ve engaged thousands of people and dozens of organizations intending to help them understand where they can improve, tried to move them into a more optimized space, tried to enhance their lives, their businesses, their safety…and when I mention the term Human Performance, they gave me the “RCA dog look.” You know, the head tilted slightly to the right with eyes staring right at you and a bemused expression on their face. Clearly, they had no idea what I was talking about. Luckily, many of my colleagues have experienced the same thing and, over the years, we’ve been able to agree upon and capture a few ways that we feel help us describe what HP is…and what is it not. Hopefully this short article will help clear up any questions you might have with regard to often misunderstood area of practice.
I feel compelled to start with what I believe Human Performance is not. I believe HP is not some sort of magic or mystical tome of cryptic scribblings expressing what we should or shouldn’t do to improve our individual and collective performance. No, not at all. I believe HP is a simple, yet deliberate and scientific approach to understanding the human as we work and live in any particular environment. In other words, it is basically How and Why we do What we do in the environment in which we do it…AND the results that follow. Most of us think Human Performance (Simple Answer) is how we physically perform in a given task or job. How we physically move (Anatomy) and how we physically function (Biology). And this would be a correct answer…to a degree. However, Human Performance is much more than that. It includes other areas of science that we don’t often consider in our everyday activities. Physiology, Psychology, Kinesiology, Sociology, Ergometrics and Anthropometrics to name a few…
- Anatomy and Physiology — Anatomy is the study of the structure and relationship between body parts. Physiology is the study of the function of body parts and the body as a whole.
- Kinesiology is the scientific study of human or non-human body movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, biomechanical, and psychological dynamic principles and mechanisms of movement.
- Ergonomics is the science of designing the workplace, keeping in mind the capabilities and limitations of the worker. Anthropometrics is the scientific study of the measurements and proportions of the human body.
- Sociology is the study of society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction and culture of everyday life.
- Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior, according to the American Psychological Association. It is the study of the mind, how it works, and how it affects behavior.
- Biology is the natural science that studies life and living organisms, including their physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development and evolution.
Human Performance is the relationship to those physical and cognitive actions and behaviors that produce a result. Okay, here’s an even simpler way of looking at it…HP is a series of behaviors executed to accomplish specific results or… Human Performance = Behaviors + Results.
I believe understanding HP gives us more insight into understanding Human Error…and if there is anything that is good about errors and their related performance decrements, it is that we can learn from them so as not to repeat the same errors in the future! If we can find a way to PROACTIVELY identify error likely situations and act upon that information, we are certainly on the right track to success! I have always felt that understanding Human Performance gives us an edge. It allows us to peel back the onion so to speak when we are looking for cause and contribution to error in the workplace…or anywhere for that matter. And, once we understand HP more thoroughly, we can proactively and deliberately plan and develop courses of action with this new knowledge which will result in higher levels of individual capability, effectiveness and resiliency throughout any organization. After all, we ALL have an obligation to not only speak up and say something if we recognize/identify error likely situations in our operations and our workplace, but we must also always strive to understand ourselves and the environments in which we work. We succeed…or fail…as a team.
I sincerely hope that this short article helps you understand what Human Performance is and how it applies to us all, regardless of where we work. It’s always my pleasure to hear from you…please feel free to send us comments or questions! Until next time, stay sharp out there and keep striving to understand and optimize your own Human Performance!