This article presents the training and performance improvement approach, performance templates (P-T), and provides empirical evidence to support the efficacy of P-T. This approach involves a partnership among managers, trainers, and employees in the creation, use, and improvement of guides to affect the performance of critical tasks in the operating environment. The P-T approach requires much involvement and hands-on activities by training participants, and, as a result, training groups are not large. Given that limitation, a comparison of employees trained with P-T methods and employees trained in more conventional methods indicates that the P-T approach can lead to improved performance to some extent over a fairly short period. (Contains 2 tables.)