Dr. Don Tosti and Stephanie Jackson
www.vanguardc.com

Broaden your skills

Most ISPI members already have a substantial set of skills in training delivery, instructional design, gap analysis, and a host of other areas, many of which are focused primarily on improving performance at the job level. Performance consulting represents an opportunity to extend these skills and develop them in such areas as opportunity analysis, culture change, process engineering, and leadership development.

The principles of behavior technology and systems theory that underlie such skills as instructional design and task analysis also apply to performance improvement at the organizational level. Learning to apply those principles to a wider range of issues and problems will strengthen your ability to use them easily and creatively in virtually any situation that calls for a change in performance or results. You will have a solid professional capability that – unlike many, these days – will not go out of date.

The greater your skill repertoire, and the more fluent you are in the fundamental principles of performance technology, the more opportunities you have to significantly contribute to your organization’s long-term success. You will be able to address the "big" issues that have the greatest impact on organizational results.

Most people find that performance consulting offers an opportunity to take on a wide variety of interesting and challenging issues.

Performance consulting typically deals with issues that cross many organizational boundaries. As a result, there’s an opportunity to expand your client base and work with people at all levels and in all functions of the organization. As a bonus, that often gives you a broad perspective on the organization and a capability that increases the value of your work, both to you as an individual and to your organization.