Chapter 9. DIAGNOSING AND IMPROVING PERFORMANCE

A CASE STUDY

Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease.

—Plutarch

The pharmaceutical industry has developed a host of effective medicines. Penicillin, for example, is a drug of demonstrated effectiveness. However, it probably won't help a cataract. There's no evidence that cortisone will do an y-thing for a fever. Aspirin has been called a wonder drug, but it is actually harmful to someone suffering from an ulcer. Unfortunately, every effective medicine addresses only a limited number of ailments. Professional diagnosticians, called doctors, are paid to match medications with patients' illnesses.

Similarly, there are lots of proved performance improvement "medicines" out there. Training ...

Get Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.