Enabling people to improve their performance

Editor's Notebook

By its very nature, AQP is about people. Its about the way people join forces in collaboration, melding their best ideas and efforts to generate quality-for their customers, co-workers, organizations, other stakeholders, and themselves.

This issue focuses on one of the most important success strategies available today-working with individuals and teams to improve their performance. In my opinion, there's no other strategy that offers such long-term benefits. After all, every time an employee increases his/her competencies, those competencies become a permanent part of the organization's arsenal of capabilities. What other investment offers such longevity and has the flexibility for application in such a variety of circumstances?

Yet, not all managers embrace the concept that enabling their people and organizations to improve through teaching, mentoring, coaching, counseling, and consulting is a necessary, or even worthwhile, endeavor. And even those who do accept the concept rarely seem to invest the time and effort to understand what approaches should be used under what circumstances-let alone to develop their own skills in providing these tools.

In this issue, we've included four articles to describe ways to improve individual and organizational performance. Internationally recognized coaching authority Marshall Goldsmith shares the findings of his research and many firsthand experiences, helping us to understand the opportunities and challenges associated with assisting already successful people in improving. Other articles in our special topic section present a process and tools for coaching, a comparison of the various intervention methods that are available, and insights into why leaders must have courage to succeed.

Additionally, we have two important articles in our general interest section. The first describes AQP's National Team Excellence Award competition process-- clarifying its purpose, value to team members and their organizations, and the process that's used.

The second article introduces a new feature that will be included in each future issue of JQP, called "Industry Focus," where we highlight practices in a particular industrial segment. This issue's article addresses how communitybased alliances are used in health care.

Another new addition to JQP is the department "This Issue in Summary." Because we recognize that almost everyone is racing through life at breakneck speed these days, we thought it useful to offer you a condensed version of the featured topic and general interest articles. We're hoping these summaries will help you not only choose which articles to read immediately but will also provide you with a few up-front "take aways" from the articles that you set aside for future reading. We've incorporated "For More Information," which provided resources from AQP's Information Center, into this new department.

And of course, we have our regular departments to give you perspectives on the fields of quality and participation. Beginning with this issue, however, we've got a special four-part department by Brett Richards, "Intelligent...," which provides insights on how to rethink commonly accepted beliefs and practices.

I hope you'll enjoy this issue as much as we've enjoyed planning and working with the authors to create it. Our editorial team invites you to coach us on how to improve JQP by sending your feedback to us at debbie@aqp.org. We need your input to help us focus on our strengths and opportunities for improvement!

Deborah Hopen Editor

Copyright Association for Quality and Participation Spring 2003
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