When a federal agency identifies a performance problem (mission outcomes below target, a compliance failure, a customer service gap, an error rate that keeps climbing), the first instinct is often to commission a training course. That instinct is understandable but frequently wrong. Training addresses knowledge and skill deficits, and those deficits are only one of several root causes of performance problems. When agencies spend training budgets on problems that training cannot solve, they get the same performance results at a higher cost. Performance consulting is the discipline that bridges the gap between identifying a performance problem and deploying the right intervention. It starts with analysis, not assumptions.
Performance Consulting vs. Training: A Critical Distinction
The core difference between a training vendor and a performance consultant is where engagement begins. A training vendor starts with a solution (here are the courses we offer) and maps it to the need you describe. A performance consultant starts with the performance gap itself: the measurable difference between current outcomes and required outcomes. From there, the consultant works backward to identify root causes before recommending any intervention.
Thomas Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model, introduced in Human Competence (1978), organizes the factors that influence workplace performance into six cells, three in the work environment and three in the individual.
Environmental supports
- Information: Employees don’t know what is expected, don’t get timely feedback, or lack the guidance and data they need. Clearer standards, feedback loops, and job guides address this, not training.
- Resources (instrumentation): Employees have the knowledge and motivation but lack the tools, materials, time, or systems to perform.
- Incentives: The reward structure, financial or otherwise, reinforces the wrong behaviors or fails to recognize the right ones.
Individual factors
- Knowledge and skills: Employees don’t know how to do the work. This is the cell training is designed to address.
- Capacity: The job doesn’t match the person’s capabilities. Selection, job design, scheduling, or accommodations address this, not training.
- Motives: The person’s own motivations don’t fit the role. Recruitment, placement, and management are the usual levers, not learning programs.
Only one of the six cells, knowledge and skills, is directly addressed by training. The other five require different interventions, and Gilbert argued that the environmental cells are generally the more cost-effective place to start.
When Training IS the Answer
Performance consulting is not anti-training; it is pro-analysis. Training is the right intervention when the performance gap is genuinely caused by a lack of knowledge or skill, for example:
- employees don’t know how to perform a required task
- a new regulation or system requires updated skills
- new employees need onboarding
- employees can describe what they should do but cannot reliably demonstrate it
Even then, in our experience, training alone rarely produces sustained behavior change without on-the-job practice, manager reinforcement, and job aids that extend learning into daily work.
The Performance Consulting Process in a Federal Context
Analyze
Define the performance gap in measurable terms. Identify root causes through data review, interviews, and observation, and determine which interventions are warranted: training, process redesign, job aids, management coaching, or system changes. In a federal environment, analysis also accounts for constraints, such as what can actually be changed given civil service rules, budget limitations, and leadership priorities.
Design
Interventions are designed based on what the analysis found. That may include training, but it may also include performance support tools, process documentation, management development, feedback system redesign, or workflow changes. Good design specifies the expected behavior change and how it will be measured.
Implement
Implementation is coordinated across whatever combination of interventions the analysis recommended, involving training components, process owners, IT, HR, or management as appropriate.
Evaluate
Evaluation at the behavior-change level closes the loop. Did the performance gap close? If not, what additional root causes need to be addressed? In a federal context, evaluation results also support the business case for continued investment in performance improvement.
Common Federal Performance Gaps Misdiagnosed as Training Problems
Through our work with federal clients, we see recurring performance patterns that are often misdiagnosed:
- acquisition errors that stem from unclear process documentation (an information problem)
- customer service inconsistency driven by absent feedback mechanisms (also information)
- new system adoption failures, where training is delivered before process changes have stabilized and without adequate change management (a resources and environment problem)
In each case, training delivered before the analysis is complete produces disappointing results.
Gotham Government Services brings a performance consulting approach to every engagement: we start with analysis, design solutions to root causes, and measure outcomes at the level that matters to agency leadership. If your agency faces a performance gap that training alone hasn’t closed, contact GGS to discuss how a structured performance consulting approach could help.
Sources
- Gilbert, T. F. (1978). Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance. McGraw-Hill.
- Chevalier, R. (2003). “Updating the Behavior Engineering Model.” Performance Improvement, 42(5). ERIC: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ676519
- Boise State University OPWL, “Evidence for Behavior Engineering Model”: https://www.boisestate.edu/opwl-worc/evidence-for-behavior-engineering-model/