In the 1930s, a scientist named B.F. Skinner began a lifetime of research on learning. Skinner’s work brought the science of Behavior Analysis to the world's attention. He showed that positive consequences for desired behaviors are the only effective means of increasing and improving performance.
In the mid 1960s, Aubrey C. Daniels, a clinical psychologist, became convinced that the methods developed by Skinner and other behavioral scientists best enabled his patients to change their own behaviors. He then asked himself, "If positive consequences are the best way to change and improve behavior and elicit discretionary effort, why don't businesses use this knowledge systematically?" That's when he coined the phrase Performance Management (PM), quit his practice and shortly thereafter formed Aubrey Daniels and Associates, Inc., now Aubrey Daniels International (ADI). Today, with a quarter century of hands-on experience in the business community, ADI has evolved into an internationally respected corporation, the leader in helping organizations and industries optimize performance by addressing a trait common to all humans -- behavior.
An Internet search for the term Performance Management will produce hundreds of hits. However, a consistently growing number of businesses around the world use ADI’s behavior-based Performance Management. These businesses know there is only one sustainable process by that name -- ADI’s process of Applied Behavior Analysis -- that relies on the systematic application of positive consequences to maximize performance.
Definition: ADI’s Performance Management (PM), now referred to as Precision Leadership, is a systematic, data-oriented approach to managing people by arranging conditions for positive reinforcement in individual and group performance. Grounded in the science of Applied Behavior Analysis, Precision Leadership employs pinpointing, measurement, feedback and positive consequences to promote the critical behaviors that will produce the desired results. Companies, managers, athletes, and families across America and around the world use this process to achieve optimal performance in all areas of human endeavor.
