PROMOTING WIDESPREAD, DURABLE SERVICE QUALITY VIA INTERLOCKING CONTINGENCIES

Technologies for promoting quality of organizational services to the d evelopmentally disabled have been evolving over the past several decad es. Feedback, reinforcement and often, goal-setting, powerful change t ools, generally are incorporated within behavioral interventions. Desp ite their promise, wide-scale application of these strategies often is impeded by natural and informal organizational contingencies. In an a ttempt to combat such impediments, a structure of interlocking conting encies was designed to train and support managers' provision of effect ive feedback to their subordinates, peers, and superiors. The system i ncluded formal scheduling of feedback reinforcement and goal setting i n a way that attempted to (a) minimize financial costs, time and effor t; (b) empower participants by involving them in designing the specifi cs of the system; and (c) promote momentum by encouraging dense schedu les of feedback. Within a period of less than 6 months, supervisors, m anagers, and professional specialists conducted brief audits and deliv ered nearly 9,000 written feedback reports to workers serving 129 clie nts, with the result that staff-client interactions and client engagem ent levels increased substantially. Future research should replicate t hese methods under more rigorous experimental conditions and formally assess some of the system's spillover into realms such as gains in cli ents' skill levels, and staff arid public acceptance. (C) 1998 Elsevie r Science Ltd.