DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT AS A CORE VALUE

Welcome to our second 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...

As I shared in my last editorial, serving on the ISPI Board of Directors, as well as editing PIJ, I have relied heavily on our ISPI Guiding Principles. Listed below, they continue to serve as my loadstone in maintaining a focus on what should matter to our ISPI members, stakeholders and hopefully our clients, but what if they do not yet see the value in these essential guideposts to our work?

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.

Having served as an educator and district administrator at two of the largest educational institutions in the United States, the value of diversity, equity and inclusion were never lost on me. Such institutions typically have to deal with highly complex and challenging problems that require thoughtful and detailed planning and execution to achieve their desired goals and impact. Using design thinking approaches before they were even popular or well-known, we facilitated countless workshops and other professional development opportunities that required the establishment of a learning environment that not only allowed for diversity of thought but depended on it to achieve our desired outcomes. Today, I find myself often reflecting on that work and how unlikely our success would have been without this essential tenet of continuous improvement.

As you reflect on our individual and collective actions throughout the field of Human Performance Improvement (HPI), what has been your experience in working in a diverse and inclusive environment? Did you find it to be a value-added proposition?

In our collective efforts in continuing 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 Frank Fu, Hong Yi and Timothy Brock's article, The Relevance and Robustness of Gilbert's Behavioral Engineering Model In An Emerging Market Environment: Empirical Evidence From China, on how the BEM has become a popular framework for guiding performance improvement practices in recent years. They attempt to close a significant gap in the literature. Consider how their findings confirm the relevance and robustness of the BEM in China?

Sharmeen Mobin Bhuiyan offers her work, Performances of the Primary Health-Care Facilities In Bangladesh: Data Envelopment Analysis, in ensuring optimal use of resources reduces waste and enhances performance. In a country like Bangladesh. The study measured the technical efficiency of primary public health-care facilities using Data Envelopment Analysis. Manpower was found to be an important determinant of efficiency. Her work should help decision-makers to identify the causes of low efficiency and adopt measures to increase efficiency and improve performance.

Jeffery Phillips shares, Considering Change Management When Conducting HPT Evaluation, in which he identifies six HPT evaluation models and describes how practitioners can use these models to evaluate performance improvement and change management implementations simultaneously.

In her contribution to this issue, Ria Roy asks us to consider, 2023 And Beyond: What Does the Future Hold for The Field of Performance Improvement? Always thoughtful in her perspective, should be an interesting read.

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. William Yeager, our Board Operations Director, and Andy Campbell, also Board Member who served as our Conference Chair this year. Do you know either of these two ISPI members?

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

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 and hopefully you were able to attend this year's 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!