TRANSLATING CORE VALUES INTO ACTIONABLE STRATEGIES

Welcome to our first issue of the Performance Improvement Journal (PIJ) for 2023! As always, we also express our sincere gratitude and appreciation to our esteemed Board of Directors for their valued input and feedback, as well as our associate editors and contributing authors who offer us such interesting and engaging perspectives from the field.

My thoughts...

We are all looking forward to the new year with the hopes of turning the page on some of the global challenges we have all been recently facing, including the lingering pandemic, impacts of climate change, and political uncertainty across many nations, combined with the need for social justice. Times like this call for not just thoughtful planning, but also actionable strategies designed to positively impact our collective benefit and prosperity. However, it will be essential that we are able to agree on what that looks like, sounds like, and feels like. To this end, I have found that the established core values of any organization and/or nation serve as the bedrock for accountable and sustainable action when moving in a new or desired direction.

While serving on the ISPI Board of Directors, as well as editing PIJ, I have relied heavily on our ISPI Guiding Principles. Listed below, they have been my loadstone in maintaining a focus on what matters to our ISPI members and other stakeholders and what actions would be in line with these principles.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

• Maintain a global mindset.

• Facilitate networking among practitioners.

• Leverage opportunities.

• Foster diversity and inclusion.

• Value stakeholders.

• Operate under the Standards of Performance Technology and the Code of Ethics of our profession.

As we reflect on our individual and collective actions throughout the field of Human Performance Improvement (HPI), what actionable strategies will you pursue in your role(s) to positively impact our collective benefit and prosperity? As in the words of Benjamin Franklin, “Well done is better than well said.”

In our collective efforts to engage our ISPI membership and PIJ readers and authors, we will continue to highlight our Mission, Vision, and Guiding Principles and encourage them to contribute and share their lived experiences and diverse perspectives. We always enjoy hearing back from our members and readers to also learn how the authors and their submissions to PIJ have helped you to expand your range of available options for improving human performance. Let us know what you think as you examine their work in each issue's contributions. Here is a brief description of what you will find in this issue.

We begin with our collective tribute to Dale Brethower, who passed away this last year. Dale was a professor emeritus at Western Michigan University (WMU) who started as a graduate student at Harvard University and studied under B. F. Skinner. His pioneering work in the field of HPT and service as president in 2000–2001 for ISPI are greatly appreciated. His family and colleagues share their memories and tributes to his esteemed life and legacy.

Sheila Murphy and Tracey Regenold share their efforts in facilitating “Performance improvement of a volunteer board: Designing a strategic plan using Zoom.” They place their focus on the relevance of clear understanding of organizational purpose, role clarity and performance expectations, strategic emphasis with clear agendas, the alignment and recruitment of board member contributions to governance, board staff support, and shared versus individual authority of board members.

Douglas Hutchinson and Sueng Youn (Yonnie) Chyung share their insights on the fine details of designing and refining Likert scales based on new research from the field in “Evidence-based survey design: Adding ‘moderately' or ‘somewhat' to Likert scale options ‘agree' and ‘disagree' to get interval-like data.”

Alexander L. Lapshun and Andrew Wai Kok Ng offer an approach that promotes the benefits of mid-level managers encouraging both collaboration and competition in “Internal competition in a high-performance team.”

We encourage you to consider reaching out to any of these practitioners and discover what benefits you might find from these types of communication and ensuing relationships.

Once again, Judy Hale introduces and interviews two ISPI members, so that we can all continue to learn more about our colleagues; this time we highlight two members of our ISPI Board of Directors. Dr Stephanie Johnson, our Board Secretary, and Dr Marsha Parker, who is facilitating the design and development of our Society's new Marketing Plan. Do you know either of these two ISPI members?

As always, we are so grateful to have the opportunity to share diverse perspectives from so many talented and dedicated contributors to the PIJ! We are also thankful to our members and readers who look forward to reviewing the contents of each issue. We also hope we are continuing to engage our membership through our online events. Perhaps consider submitting a proposal to present at our 2023 ISPI Annual Conference in Williamsburg, Virginia from April 23–27, 2023!

CALL FOR PAPERS

Do you have an idea for an article? Have you seen a great presentation that should become an article? Are you a little short on Certified Performance Technologist recertification points? PIJ is actively seeking articles that cross the boundaries of domains, enhance creativity, introduce Human Performance Technology (HPT)-related innovations, or simply teach a new HPT tool or method. Readers enjoy seeing the application of performance improvement standards that will inspire them to action. Please submit articles by sending an email to pij@ispi.org.

Please send questions to pij@ispi.org. We look forward to seeing your contributions, comments, or questions. Again, thank you for reading!