Performance Management: Improving Quality and Productivity Through Positive Reinforcement [Hardcover]

I've used this book as a textbook for 11 years, and it is the only book I have ever had students tell me they gave to their bosses to read. It is a great intro to PM, and introduces the reader to behavioral principles that can help you understand and improve performance in any organization. The chapter on ABC Analysis is worth the price of the book on its own. Readers will also quickly realize why positive reinforcement is the motivational tool of choice for encouraging the behaviors that will lead to key results.

I have used this book to teach PM to Managers, Supervisors and hourly since 1993...I recommend it to anyone who wishes to make improvements in performance. This book makes improvements painless and it encourages all who participate.
This book has helped turn around more than one company SUCCESSFULLY!!!

I have read, been through training on, and now applied for several years in the workplace the principles taught in this book and I can tell you first hand that it is not just relevant, but highly effective in real-world usage.

I have applied these techniques in formalized plans for individuals and groups of employees ranging from engineers to salaried management, to hourly front-line employees, all with great success.

This book is the foundation of my approach to Lean in the workplace, and I teach the basics of the ABC's to my leads, front-line supervisors, and point-people in helping them deal generally with people and their behavior, and I can tell you the success I have seen attributable to these principles is real and lasting.

It has shaped my own personal mangement style, and helped drive high levels of morale in my personally-managed work teams and in my family. I purchased a related book, "The Power of Positive Parenting" and my wife and I have used it to help us get our kids through their teens.

I have been able to pinpoint and correct specific detrimental behaviors as well as shape the culture of work groups. I have seen improvements in all facets of business from safey to productivity and quality of the work. I have taken employees who were in the process of being "worked out" off their positions and helped them turn into high-level performers (and this with both engineers and manager/supervisor level employees, not just hourly). In short, I have taken it seriously, worked to apply it and change my style, and I have seen it work.

I did rate this as a 4 since the clinical text-book style of this book can make it hard to do much with it if you have not had the accompnaying classroom training, but I still highly recommend it. If you can, get into one of the classes at the Aubrey Daniels institute in Atlanta, GA. It is well worth it. If not, read it, take the time to work through your own case-studies, following it step-by-step, and stick with it until it is just the way you work with people. The results can be amazing.

In all fairness, it is hard at first to seem sincere, since you are trying to apply a system to managing people, so it can come across as wooden and formulaic until you really get the concepts. But the key is involving people in the process...almost letting them know up front you are trying something new and would appreciate their support. They will see the value soon enough, and then it becomes ingrained and you are off and running.

It may not be a case-study in the latest brain-science, or whatever, but it works, and for a business book, that is all that matters.

I think it makes more sense to see if it works in real-life, rather than just listen to an academic review of the subject matter, since this is meant to be a real-world text, not just fodder for a graduate level class for people whose only goal is to teach graduate level classes.

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