Processes and Workers

 In any system of work processes, when results suffer, there is that inevitable looking around for someone to blame.  This happens in industry, government, or even in volunteer activities.

Dr. Deming makes a strong case for the process being the cause of poor performance in the majority of instances.  This is almost a default condition as it is not an easy task to evaluate worker performance in a process that is poorly designed. So, it becomes almost defacto that poorly designed processes are the cause of poor performance, thus absolving the worker of any blame.

Then, there are very simple processes, so simple that any design is probably workable, that produce poor results.  Now the situation is reversed in that the process is okay, but the worker is at fault.

We can then go to another layer of this simple process which produces inferior results due to worker substandard work and ask the question, why is this happening?  Why, when we have a simple process that any average person can handle, the process is not executed properly? 

Here, I begin to grin as I recall a book published way back in 1970 and authored by Mager and Pipe.  In this book, the authors go through the logic of why performance is lagging and, in using their logic, poor performance in a simple process gets down to three probable causes.

1. good performance has no rewards
2. poor performance is rewarded
3. performance doesn't matter either way

Hmmm, how should I apply this to work that is assigned to a volunteer and is simple to carry out, such as maintaining a current file of paper documents?

It seems as if I can't apply any of the three, so there must be a fourth one somewhere.

 No. 4 could be named: self-motivation lacking.

New sign in the window:  Looking for volunteers.  Must be self-motivated.

Might it be that the successful volunteer worker must always be self-motivated?