The Torch Solutions Group Vision

The quote above came from Gilbert. He is known as the father of Human Performance Improvement. His book, Human Competence, has been a source of strategies and techniques as they deal with complex industry performance issues. Gilbert focused on improving individual performance, demonstrating that as individual performance improved, improvements would be made to the entire system.

Some of the best observers of workforce dynamics are those with keen insight who work in the trenches, as employees, first-line managers, or project consultants. Leila is one of those that is recognized by those who work with or for her as one who "gets them," and can render practical advice for difficult situations. Leila and I spent many hours discussing the situations we saw at work and the consequences of actions and decisions made by leaders and employees. We created the forerunner to the Individual Mesh model, called the Organizational Mesh, years ago based on those discussions. You'll see Leila's influence throughout Torch Solutions Group programs.

Harless provided answers early in my instructional  career. I would get requests to develop training courses that didn't seem to fit the problem as I saw it. His book,  An Ounce of Analysis, represents the message he consistently pushed: spend the time and effort making sure you know the human performance issues in context with other issues before thinking of solutions. At a conference, he shared the thought that we would learn more about what produced value by watching the more competent people than we could ever get from a room of subject-matter experts.

Powell might be surprised to find his name on my list. I hope not. We had tremendous discussions on human performance improvement. From him I learned to better practice the patience required to get to the best solutions. Much of the Meaningful Competence approach reflects the content of those discussions. I appreciated most his focus on not just solving a problem, but providing increased value for the organization. 

Binder is a leader in the behavioral science community. His interests took him into the world of corporations, creating the Performance Thinking Network to build and support a pool of  human performance improvement practitioners. His receipt of the Thomas F. Gilbert Distinguished Professional Achievement Award (see Thomas Gilbert above) sums up his great contributions to the field of Human Performance Improvement.

Straker had to deal with me during the early development of Meaningful Competence. His theoretical knowledge of Human Performance Improvement made him a great counterpart for discussions addressing my concerns with the field and its application for the individual. Through those discussions I recognized how to make human performance improvement practical for the individual employee, allowing each employee to be their own performance consultants to know their value and know how to increase their value.

I give thanks and apologies to the host of others. I thank them for their patience while I spent hours trying out ideas on them. Hence the reason for apologies; I may have asked more time and endurance than they felt they had for this topic and my endless exploration.