 performance is real. Our human history reveals that people have actually accomplished things. Families have run farms, blacksmiths have fashioned an iron, people have dug their own wells and raised their own children. This introduces a course in human performance. Performance is not measured by what you do, it is measured by what you accomplish. In place of performance we are commonly taught how to get ahead of others. It is how winners are a little faster, stronger, or more knowledgeable than others. The lesson is that the way to get human power is to be better than others. I heard that the most powerful animal in the forest is the one where all others step aside when they meet on a narrow path. I pointed out that it wasn't the seven-ton bull elephant, it was seven pounds of ants marching along together. Overcoming others can indeed be a test of your power, but for accomplishment we work with others instead of bettering them. Our knowledge base starts with family, where even the determined schoolyard bully leaves the weaker child alone when in the presence of older siblings. They are likely to join in and the bully suffer defeat. We started formalizing our knowledge of performance in 1911, focusing on how to best accomplish productive results through employees. The first improvement was eliminating unproductive work, getting focus on doing only those things that contributed to performance. It was accomplished by the person in charge doing this to support the workers. This was also the start of performance management because people working in planned and coordinated efforts, each taking their part, achieve more than twice as much as workers performing as individuals. Workers who team became a lot more valuable to the businesses that employed them. This course addresses how to take effective part by your contribution, by your leadership, or by your initiative. It is lessons in teaming with others. Performance is beyond just employment. It is a human study in what like family can bring us to team with each other. It is a study of our human values and how you can decide on the acts you take based on achieving what you value. This is empowerment. It is giving you the tools to see the value we can gain through human effort and to bring others to join in when they come to see it too. People value what they own. When we share ownership, we can team. As Americans, this is our nation. We own its government and it is ours. We own our economy. We are the only party in interest where activities cost us, but we receive no value. It is waste. Improvement will be by eliminating that waste. Our knowledge base is vision and technique. It is being able to see what people can so value that they will come together to make it happen. It is communicating that vision to others. It is initiating and managing action as needed to achieve results. Our knowledge base includes recognizing where our present power is being wasted, where our efforts do not gain results. It isn't seeing values that we have not been receiving and how each of us can choose our own empowerment. But even that is not enough. You are the unit of performance, the only party in interest, and only you can value what you receive. We have many lessons that would divide us against ourselves, replacing action with indecision. You are not an id in competition with an ego. You are a unit, not some controlling intellect containing an animal view. You are not some master you establishing control over all the other views. You are a unit who can decide when and where to act. You are indeed the only party in interest when it comes to your actions. But you can see where accomplishment is best served by how you interact with other people, people who are like you in so many ways.