Now, More Than Ever, Our World Needs Our Maximum ‘Quality of Contribution’

In my November post, I introduced the notion of reality gaps and their role in influencing employee quality of contribution (QoC for short). Thank you to everyone who joined in the discussion.

This follow-up post is for everyone who asked how they may apply QoC methods themselves.

First, let’s explore QoC principles and then QoC practice.

QoC Principles

I’ll begin with a simple definition of performance; 

‘How effective we are at fulfilling a set of agreed objectives.’

From this definition, it's quite apparent that our performance is contingent on the quality of our contribution to our aims and objectives.

The relationship between performance and contribution is an important one because as work environments become more disrupted and disruptive, the quality of our contribution and our performance is compromised.

Put another way. Our capacity to perform is less than our capability to perform. 

We often underestimate the nature and scale of these capacity-capability differences or gaps and the damage they cause to individual, team and organisation performance—a real cause for concern.

To do my bit to help, I established the QoC core Principles.

The QoC Principles simplify the task of identifying programme conditions that influence our capacity to achieve our objectives against our capability to achieve them. When I apply the QoC Principles, foremost in my mind is the elimination of all significant capacity-capability gaps associated with a programme of work; the pursuit of maximum QoC or 'QoC Max'.

I pursue QoC Max through establishing, developing and maintaining programme' Intention', 'Advocacy' and 'Expression'. These three QoC Principles are defined in the diagram, below.

For everyone involved in a programme of work, the QoC journey begins by determining; 'where to contribute (Intention)', 'why to contribute (Advocacy)' and 'how to contribute (Expression)'. When combined, these Principles establish strong programme cohesion and a clear programme trajectory.

When the QoC Principles evolved into what is now QoC Practice, the QoC Index was born.

The QoC Index helps keep an eye on the quality of contribution of programme participants. The QoC Index gives a continuous assessment of the strength and consistency of Intention, Advocacy and Expression associated with a programme of work.

As programme complexity increases, strength and consistency of Intention, Advocacy and Expression, must also increase.

By establishing and monitoring a set of QoC vital-signs associated with a programme of work means when QoC becomes unstable and falls, underlying issues are quickly identified and resolved, preventing any significant or lasting damage to programme performance.

For example. The two 3D-plots below map employee contribution space and reveal QoC highs and lows during week 1 and week 2 of a six-week innovation programme. Green arrows identify QoC highs, red arrows QoC lows.

If you hadn’t already guessed, I have become QoC obsessed.

Equally, what drives my obsession is the pure excitement of exploring the uncharted frontier of workplace performance engineering and the ease by which anyone can grasp and apply QoC. 

It’s the simple approaches (that perform) that become adopted approaches (that scale). The best approaches to workplace performance engineering empower people and proliferate amongst them.

With the QoC basics done, let’s now explore how you can implement QoC.

QoC Practice

QoC Practice will always deliver a positive experience by making it easier for people to express their true selves and their best selves.

Even the simple action of surveying programme conditions through the QoC lenses can be an enormously illuminating and profound experience.

In its simplest form, QoC Practice is a collaborative means for discovering and managing issues preventing strong and sustained employee focus (Intention), motivation (Advocacy) and contribution (Expression).

In its more sophisticated form, QoC Practice helps organisations recognise the capacity-capability gaps that impact programme performance the most and helps close these gaps and keep them closed.

As a QoC practitioner, you aim to reduce the capacity-capability gaps of everyone involved in a programme of work. You pursue this aim by building and maintaining the conditions that promote the maximum possible quality of contribution of those involved, i.e. you continually strive for QoC Max.

At a macro and micro-level, programme conditions will change often and unpredictably; as such, the quality of contribution will rise and fall throughout a programme of work.

Table 1 below is an abridged version of the QoC approach, taken from the QoC Practitioner Guide.

QoC Potential

A week or so before people begin their QoC journey; I often ask them to perform a simple exercise.

First, I describe QoC and ask them to estimate, using a scale of 1 to 5, the quality of their contribution for the previous work week. From more than three hundred people who have completed this exercise, the average score is 3.9.

I then describe QoC Detractors and QoC Challengers and give examples of each and ask everyone to look out for both within their work and within their work environment.

One week later, I ask everyone to estimate their quality of contribution during that week.

The average score for the second week is 2.6.

For people involved in a programme of work, this exercise shows them their quality of contribution is not only lower than expected, but the causes are identifiable.

Their QoC journey can now begin.

I hope the workplace performance specialists, coaches, engineers, executives and enthusiasts reading this, can make good use of the QoC Principles within your work, so you and your team can begin your QoC journey.

Thank you for your time.

Very Best.

Chris

(Chief Contribution Officer)

PS. I have just completed a video to illustrate how 'employee contribution spaces' work alongside change-related programmes of work. I will post asap. If you can bear my Yorkshire dulcet-tones, I am quite sure its message will trigger a stream of thoughts and ideas.

PPS. Also, I am putting together a webinar to explore employee contribution space 'use cases'. If you are interested in joining, please message or email me.