Just as violins alone cannot create the sound of an orchestra, trainers alone cannot assure that the people they train will perform well on the job. For people actually to do the things they need to do to perform a job successfully, these four conditions must be present: skill, self-efficacy, opportunity to perform and a supportive environment.

Though trainers are responsible for influencing the skills and the self-efficacy of their trainees, only managers can he held responsible for providing an opportunity to perform and a supportive environment in which to perform.

The first, third and fourth requirements for facilitating performance are obvious enough. Without skill, performance isn't possible. Without an opportunity to perform--that is, without the tools, equipment, space, time and permission to do the job properly performance isn't possible. Without a supportive environment (one that rewards rather than punishes desired performance), performance will quickly wither. But self-efficacy is also critical to sustained performance. What is it, and how is it created?

Self-efficacy refers to people's judgments about their capabilities to execute particular courses of action--to do specific things ("I can ride a horse bareback--or with my shirt on"). It refers to people's beliefs about their ability to influence the events that affect their lives. It is concerned not with the actual skills one has, but with judgments about what one can do with those skills ("I know I can play 'The William Tell Overture' on the violin while blindfolded").

The importance of sell-efficacy (SE) must not be underestimated. Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura put it succinctly in "Organizational Applications of Social Cognitive Theory," an article in the December 1988 issue of the Australian Journal of Management.

"People who have a strong belief in their capabilities think, feel and behave differently from those who have doubts about their capabilities. People who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult tasks. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the goals they choose to pursue. Failure wrecks their motivation....They give up quickly in the face of difficulties and are slow to recover their confidence following failure or setbacks."

When people don't judge themselves able to do some particular thing, they may not even try to do it, regardless of how well they can do it. And if they don't judge themselves able to learn to perform, they may choose not to enter fields in which they might excel. People don't often put themselves willingly into situations where they think they will fail. Therefore, if they are given the skills they need, but not the self-efficacy (the belief that these skills really will enable them to tackle the tasks in question), they will be unlikely to attempt to apply the skills on the job. It's just too risky for them. No self-efficacy, no performance.

Note that it is possible to have high self-efficacy about a specific performance, and at the same time expect that it will produce negative results. For example, someone can have high self-efficacy regarding an ability to perform an appendectomy through a one-inch incision, and at the same time be convinced that the operation will fail. One can have strong self-efficacy regarding one's ability to drive a golf ball long distances, and at the same time be convinced that the game will be lost. Self-efficacy refers to judgments about performing a specific act, rather than expectations about the consequences or outcomes of that act.

SELF-EFFICACY, MOTIVATION AND BEHAVIOR

Self-efficacy has five main effects on behavior.

1. CHOICE BEHAVIOR. Our choices are often affected by how efficacious we feel toward the options. If I believe that I will do poorly at speaking to large audiences, I may refuse invitations to speak at events that might enhance my career. Looking deeper, the same principle may influence the career I select in the first place, since people who believe that they will do poorly in a field will be less likely to choose it. ("I don't believe I could perform well as a tiddly-winker, so I think I'll be a trainer instead.")

2. MOTIVATION. People with high SE will mobilize more effort than those with low SE. That is, those who belive in their ability to perform in a given area will be more likely to strive harder to succeed.

3. PERSERVERANCE. People with high SE will persevere even in the presence of obstacles and negative outcomes. They are better able to continue, to bounce back, in the face of disappointments and frustrations. They will perceive a failure as only a temporary setback, rather than a final result.

TRAINING IMPLICATION: Because it is normal for trainees to experience failures during learning, it's important to help them understand that failures are a natural part of learning from mistakes.

4. FACILITATIVE THOUGHT PATTERNS. People with high SE toward performing a skill or a range of skills say to themselves, "I'm going to figure out how to solve this pmblem." Those with low SE say, "I can't do this thing," interpreting their current lack of success as a lack of ability. Thus, self-talk is influenced by self-efficacy. Those with high SE run off success scenarios; those with low SE run off failure scenarios.

The significance of these thought patterns is supported by a number of studies on performance as a funtion of perception. For example, when aging people perceive their memory loss as being due to biologically shrinking capacity, they make no effort to remember things--and they become forgetful. On the other hand, those who perceive the losses as resulting from a lack of practice tend to work harder at remembering things, and thereby improve their memory.

TRAINING IMPLICATION: Help trainees interpret their failures as a lack of practice, rather than as a result of biological inevitability.

5. VULNERABILITY TO STRESS AND DEPRESSION. Those with low SE are more likely to experience stress and depression, because they expect their future performance will lead to failure. For example, people who judge themselves to be poor public speakers will often experience all the symptoms of stage fright: sweaty palms, elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, and so on. Those with high SE, on the other hand, approach stressful situations with the assurance that they will be able to handle them--and so do not distress themselves before a performance begins. Strong, positive self-efficacy, therefore, helps reduce vulnerability to stress and depression.

TRAINING IMPLICATION: Because of the debilitating effects of low SE and the enabling effects of high SE, it is important to work at strengthening self-efficacy whenever it is particularly subject to influence. Training is such a time.

HOW IS SELF-EFFICACY STRENGTHENED?

It is commonly, and erroneously, believed that self-efficacy is developed merely through adding more knowledge and skill, or by some sort of generic "confidence building" exercise such as mountain climbing or river rafting. Not so. A positive self-judgment about tree climbing, for example, by no means guarantees a similar self-judgment about one's ability to perform on the job. As for adding knowledge and skill, it's obviously true that practice leading to mastery is important. But mastery performance is just raw data that needs to be correctly interpreted by the performers (or trainees). Unless they do so, they might conclude that their performance was due to something other than their own skill.

In other words, practice alone is not enough. Self-efficacy is strengthened through practice and through the conditions and consequences that accompany the practice of the skills to be learned. If there is no practice, of course, there is little chance that either skill or a belief in the ability to perform will develop. But the practice must be accompanied by informative feedback about the performance. The practice must be designed to lead to a series of successes, and there must be positive consequences when these successes occur. In addition, the instructional environment must provide opportunities for trainees to judge their own levels of competence. And the environment must be orchestrated so that trainees learn to credit their successes to their own performance, rather than to the influence of others or to some other situational factors.

To clarify all that, there are five ways to strengthen self-efficacy.

1. PERFORMANCE MASTERY.

The most powerful way to give me self-efficacy regarding my ability to do something well is to teach me to do that thing well. But the development of mastery (or "fluency") is not enough, because performance mastery is just raw data. Unless people are taught to interpret those data correctly, they might conclude that their mastery performance was due to other causes: The instructor helped me." "Other students helped me." "I did it right because of the job aid." "It was just good luck." "The conditions were ideal." "The task was easy."

For performance mastery to have maximum effect on SE, feedback needs to be constructive, and people must learn that they are the cause of their performance. That way feedback will have a positive effect on their perception of competence.

TRAINING IMPLICATIONS:

* Arrange for enough independent practice so that mastery, as defined by the objectives of the course, is reached or surpassed.

* To assure a series of successes, break the learning into manageable chunks that have definite end points. This will also provide more opportunities for self-confirmation of one's capabilities.

* Feedback should report progress ("You've almost got it." "You're already 75 percent of the way there.") rather than shortfall ("You're still not performing as fast as you need to.").

* When providing feedback, remind trainees of the effect of their own skill and of the minimal role played by other factors.

2. TASK-DIAGNOSTIC FEEDBACK.

We can interpret feedback information either in self-diagnostic or task-diagnostic ways.

In the self-diagnostic mode, people interpret negative feedback as an indication of personal deficiencies and imagine all kinds of disasters. They perceive failures as a reflection on their basic aptitude. They may also blame others when they fail: "They got in my way." "They didn't give me enough time."

In the self-diagnostic mode, people focus on the task to be performed. They interpret feedback and failure as information they can use to improve task performance. They are learning-oriented. They don't see failure as evidence of incompetence or lack of ability to learn. As this is the more productive approach, it is important to keep trainees task-diagnostic rather than self-diagnostic.

TRAINING IMPLICATIONS:

* Task-diagnostic interpretation of failure is a learnable skill. To promote it, help trainees to perceive how they have improved since yesterday, rather than giving them messages that will further erode their confidence: "You're not working up to your potential." "You can do better than that," "You've still got a long way to go."

* Don't deliberately make trainees fail in public. If they happen to have low self-efficacy, public failure will be more destructive--not only to the performer, but also to low self-efficacious observers. For instance, don't have trainees role play in front of an entire class until their skills and SE are raised sufficiently for them to carry it out well.

* Arrange for trainees to experience successes, and steer them toward interpreting their failures as not-yet-competent performance. For example, keep the objectives visible, and relate trainee performance to progress toward achievement of the objectives, rather than to the ability of the trainees.

* Provide trainees with proximal (near-term) goals. People are more confident in their ability to accomplish proximal goals than distant ones. This process also provides more frequent opportunities for reinforcement of growing competence.

* Once performance is mastered, it needs to be generalized; that is, it must be performed under a variety of conditions. Provide practice under a range of real-world circumstances to generalize trainees' sense of personal efficacy.

3. MODELING.

Self-efficacy can be improved when trainees watch others like themselves performing competently. Modeling can convey rich information about how the task should be done and demonstrate effective ways of coping. But modeling, like feedback, provides raw data that need to be interpreted so that trainees can carry away the appqriate messages. The more similar the model is to the trainee, the greater the modeling effect. There are two dimensions of similarity:

* Performance similarity--the model performs the same type of job the trainee is learning to do, demonstrating the same type of performance required.

* Attribute similarity--the model's sex, age, status, physical characteristics, and so on match the trainee's.

To maximize the positive effects of modeling, the model should be as similar to the learners as possible, and should demonstrate what is to be learned in the way it is to be performed in real life. (That way, it will not be necessary to say, "Do as I say, not as I do.")

TRAINING IMPLICATIONS:

* Use models similar to the trainees, and have the models demonstrate the desired performance. Make sure the trainees understand that the performance is due to the skill of the model, rather than to other factors.

* Have the model make task-diagnostic comments during or after a performance; that is, the model should demonstrate the task-diagnostic approach to the interpretation of feedback, as well as the performance itself ("Whoops. I forgot to put my hands in the right position, but I'll get it right next time").

4. SOCIAL PERSUASION.

Self-efficacy is influenced by social persuasion by the comments and actions of others. There is a long history establishing the relationship between social persuasion and self-efficacy; we all know the powerful effects that unkind comments can have on self-confidence. But the same techniques that can be used to disable also can be used to strengthen.

What must be understood is that your own comments and actions are always influencing the SE of your trainees, either favorably or unfavorably. You cannot choose to use or not use social persuasion. That's why it's so important to be careful about your comments and actions while you are in the presence of trainees. A small comment can have a big effect, and the way the feedback is phrased (or presented) can have a large effect on SE and on persistence.

TRAINING IMPLICATION: Arrange for trainees to perform successfully, and then interpret their achievement of objectives as evidence of increasing capability: "You do that better than the objective requires," or "You can see from the results of your efforts that you do that faster than you'll ever have to do it on the job."

5. INFERENCE FROM PHYSIOLOGICAL INFORMATION.

People will infer ability, or the lack of it, from physiological cues: windedness, aches, pains, effort, emotional arousal, and so on. If they have to work hard to achieve, they may interpret that fact as a lack of personal ability rather than a normal state of affairs. For me, writing is hard work, and it is easy to interpret the effort required as a lack of ability, rather than as the way things are. Creating ways to remind myself that writing is hard work (for me) helps to prevent me from misinterpreting the level of my ability.

TRAINING IMPLICATION: Make sure trainees understand that the need to exert great effort to achieve results does not imply a lack of capability. Don't allow the difficulty of doing something to lead trainees to conclude that they are not good at doing it, or that they will not become good at doing it.

The checklist on page 35 will help you ensure that trainee self-efficacy will be strengthened rather than weakened. (Checklist omitted) Use it to review the features and practices incorporated into your instruction. A "No" answer to any question will point you toward an opportunity for improvement in delivering the instruction.

SERIOUS STUFF

Self-efficacy is a serious matter. A great many childhoods are filled with, "What makes you think you can do that?" and "Can't you do anything right?" and "Is that the best you can do?" and "You'll never amount to anything!" Children thus are taught to believe not only that their skills are inadequate, but that they are lacking in basic capacities and don't have the potential to become skillful at performing the tasks of life. Entire lifetimes can be ruined by such treatment, And when trainees are ridiculed, demeaned or otherwise criticized for their attempts to try something new or to demonstrate their skill, their belief that they will ever be able to perform as expected is undermined.

People need a strong sense of efficacy before they will try to apply what they have learned and before they will try to learn new things. Belief in their ability to perform makes them less vulnerable to on-the-job conditions that aren't always supportive. It helps them to survive rejection. It helps them to persevere in the face of obstacles and setbacks. Refer to it as "self-confidence" if you want to, but the fact remains: Skills unaccompanied by positive self-efficacy will lead to deficient or absent performance.

Robert F. Mager heads Mager & Associates, a consulting firm in Carefree, AZ. He is a member of the HRD Hall of Fame.