Category Archives: EB Learning & Development

Basically this is all about applying the simple principles of evaluation to all learning and development. Not many organisations know how to use evaluation to provide an evidence-base to their L&D activities. Of course any attempt at encouraging learning without any evidence to say why it is needed or if it is a priority looks pretty stupid. Worse still, if there is no evidence to show that something beneficial has been learned then the ‘learning’ has been a waste of resources. The approach to evidence-based learning adopted here is based on Paul Kearns’ book “Evaluating the ROI from learning” (CIPD, 2005)

That brash and intimidating humvee called ‘The American Way’

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I have just returned from a week in Pakistan where I taught strategic L&D Masterclasses in Karachi and Lahore.  When I received the original invitation, some months ago, I thought really long and hard before I decided to accept but still viewed the impending trip with some trepidation (especially after reading the advice from the UK foreign office). This was one of those trips you do not do just for the money.  As an evidence-based manager I wanted to see it and experience it for myself; following the principle of genchi genbutsu that I learned from Toyota.  I am really glad I did because this was one of the most rewarding trips of my entire career.  Both groups were amongst the most intelligent, most eager to learn, most open-minded and most mature in their thinking of all the groups I have ever worked with anywhere in the world. Maybe ironically, dire political and economic circumstances can somehow bring out the best in people rather than the worst?  Oh, I forgot to add, they were incredibly polite and a real pleasure to work with. I can also recommend flying PIA.

Did you just notice something as you read that opening paragraph?  Stop for a second and consider the perspective I appear to be taking – did it not sound incredibly patronising?  Why shouldn’t the people in Pakistan be better than some of the best people I have worked with; in fact why should they not already be better than me and anyone else in the West?  So let me immediately apologise to anyone from Pakistan who I might have already offended.  My praise is genuine and does not come from a place of assumed superiority, quite the opposite, it comes from a heartfelt and humble desire to learn with and from the best. It comes from the best traditions of the real gurus in the East – where the Sanskrit term for “teacher” or “master” originates.  The real wisdom of the guru surely comes from their humility and acute awareness of their own ignorance whilst trying to contemplate the world around them, in order to make sense of it. This is why those who seek true enlightenment have often travelled to the Indian subcontinent.

Maybe that is why I now feel more enlightened. My trip to this dangerous neck of the woods made me start thinking about what was happening back at the ranch.  Having worked in HR for over 30 years, and taught many management classes, I always reacted against the notion of such a thing as a ‘management guru’ and particularly from the country that seems to think it has more than anyone else – America.  I am also conscious, particularly these days, that any hint of ‘anti-Americanism’ could get me into trouble because that is associated with those who blindly follow an opposing ideology.  Yet that is precisely my point, any ideology that is followed blindly always ends up in intimidation and that is not good from a human capital management perspective. So what is this ideology called the American Way and is that ultimately in America’s interest, never mind anyone else’s?

Here is my take on it. By definition, ideologies are simplistic and dogmatic – the less thinking you have to do the better.  The profit motive that supposedly underpins capitalism in the US is the simplest ideology in the world – you invent or make something, if customers like it they buy it, you make a profit, they are satisfied, everyone is happy.  If it were that simple though why do gated communities start springing up in the most affluent areas?  If the sole motive of profit* is such a great way for us all to get along why does it have to split us apart?  If the people you have to employ, to make things customers want, are not 100% behind your philosophy then what are your chances of achieving your own simplistic ends?

The American Way certainly has some great strengths.  America welcomes talent and is generally a democratic meritocracy: that fits perfectly with getting the best value from human capital.  It has also done a great job, thus far, of providing Americans with great wealth and a very high GDP per head: let’s not mention the US’s huge debts or inequalities though.  In short, no ideology can be that simplistic and, the way the world is shifting at the moment, simplistic ideologies are snapping under the weight of changing paradigms.  So anyone who has learned their management practice from the American Way needs to think again but the dogma is so deeply-rooted in the American management psyche it tends to want to run over everything that it deems to be in its way.  It is the philosophy of ‘my way or the highway’ – it’s just a big, brash humvee. Silly me – I always thought humvee had something to do with humans in vee-hicles.  How wrong I was.

One extremely successful company that embodies the entirety of the American Way – its best and worst traits – is Google.  It was founded by two very bright people, whose ancestors may have emigrated to the US, who received an excellent education and used their brains to innovate. I truly bless the day Google allowed me to reduce my research time down to a fraction of a second, it could possibly be the greatest innovation of all time, benefitting everyone in the world. I might even go so far as to say I don’t mind a company holding a monopoly and literally ‘printing money’ – as long as that monopoly is not abused. Then I have to keep reminding myself that no social, political and economic system can ever be that straightforward.  Google is megalomania.  I don’t ever remember being asked whether a Google vee-hicle could trundle down my street and take photographs of me and my house.  Worse still, no doubt the CIA do some of their research using Google and I’m now on their anti-American list (read to the end fellas, it ain’t that black and white). I only want the good bits of Google thank you and the only good bits will be the democratically-sanctioned bits – so how anti-American is Google?!

I can even understand how the halo effect comes into play.  High profits lead the unthinking to assume that the management at Google must be equally talented and effective but I have seen no evidence from Google that they have any idea what good management means, never mind evidence-based management.  In fact techies are famous for their lack of interpersonal and other managerial qualities (Google acknowledge this) so let us think really hard and choose our evidence very carefully before we jump to any conclusions.

What conclusion would you draw from the The New York Times (12th March, 2011) article entitled “Google’s Quest to Build a Better Boss”?  Here, in my humble but evidence-based opinion, are some of my own tentative conclusions.  Its head of HR, Laszlo Bock, does not know how to build better bosses, presumably even after many years of working in the field called HR, which is supposed to be good at managing and developing people.  What does that tell me about the profession of HR – is it all smoke and mirrors?  Maybe.  It is more likely that the problem has always been one of measurement, how do you measure what makes a good boss?  Apparently nobody in HR knows, that is presumably why Bock recruited Prasad Setty (a mathematician) to crunch some ‘HR analytics’.

‘HR analytics’ is a new piece of HR jargon, invented in America to pretend that they are evidence-based, that does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny.  It is based on the very old ideas of HR measurement ‘guru’ Jac Fitz-Enz, who received SHRM’s blessing, despite causing HR to veer off the road a long time ago.  It has yet to climb out of that ditch because of its inability to admit it was wrong.  The same psyche is compelling Lee Webster, SHRM’s HR standards director, to jump into the driving seat of America’s ANSI humvee and take over the chair of ISO committee TC260 on international HR standards.  This is the downside of the unthinking American Way.  HR at Google is the disease run rampant in my view.  Should Google shareholders be afraid of what Bock is doing? Yes. Are current American HR practices a threat to the best aspects of the American Way?  Most definitely. Maybe the CIA ought to be investigating its own HR department first for signs of un-American activities?  It gets even worse – we are actually witnessing the birth of the next big HR fad.

According to the NY Times article “D. Scott DeRue, a management professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, applauds Google for its data-driven method for management.”  I don’t think an evidence-based management professor would be applauding Google; they would be advising serious caution.  Even if Google were good at this the professor should be saying don’t try and copy Google.  GM tried to do that with Toyota and look what happened to them because they did not (and still do not) fully understand Toyota’s Eastern philosophy.  So what is already being endorsed and disseminated in the headlines as leading edge practice (without any evidence of profit) could actually be worst practice.  Such American management practices can so easily become a deadly virus.  They already are. Go now and check your competence framework and calculate the damage it has already done.  Better still, go back and check every single, non-evidence-based, ‘HR best practice’ you have ever copied from all of your similarly non-evidence-based HR peers.

Alternatively, take a trip to Pakistan and meet some of the thoughtful people there who do not pretend that they know all the answers; who did not bat an eyelid when I said, on day one, that we were going to throw HR best practice out the window and who did not have to rise to the challenge of thinking for themselves because they already do. They readily accepted my advice that unless you can see the sense in something yourself you will not be able to get anyone else to.  More importantly, although most of them worked in commercial companies that had to make a profit, I sensed that they go to work for a much higher purpose than pure profit.  That might not be the American Way, it might not even be the highway but it is certainly the most intelligent way.

*See ‘The Value Motive’ for a more humane alternative

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“We’re alright as long as we’re all wrong.”

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The Emperor’s new clothes by Thorarinn Leifsson www.totil.com

Time and time again this silent mantra, this fatal assumption that there is safety in numbers, has been HR and Learning’s undoing.  While you are all comparing management competence models no one will be stupid enough to break ranks and admit that they don’t work.

If you all talk about ROI and profess to use the same 4-level model of evaluation you can just about maintain the pretence that your training is a good investment.

Using 360° feedback might mean you all end up disappearing up your own orifices but hey, while you are all up there together, you can pretend that there is some illumination in the darkness.

You can all keep your bosses happy by sending them on expensive leadership programmes that help them to feel good about themselves while masking their inadequacies.

You dare anyone to challenge your diversity policies and ignore the very obvious evidence that there can be a serious and problematic downside.

Well, maybe your dirty little secrets were OK once, while everyone kept their mouths shut, but you were bound to be outed by evidence in the end weren’t you?  Now what do you do?

You could plead ignorance perhaps; although that is no defence in the eyes of the law.  Be a bit difficult to now say you did not realise that training without identified business needs is nonsense.  You could throw yourself on the mercy of your ‘customers’ when they realise you have made a fool out of them as well?  I don’t fancy your chances though, do you?

I suppose you could use the same tactic again of jumping on any passing bandwagon (HR analytics?) in the forlorn hope that it might either bamboozle people further or at least buy you a bit of time?  You haven’t learned have you?  That new fad is bound to suffer the same fate as all the others eventually.

Old HR habits die hard don’t they?  If you are only comfortable being part of the crowd then at least recognise that the numbers game is going in the opposite direction now.  The façade of HR convention has finally crumbled and no one will be rushing to join your shrinking minority.  Also, you are up against much more powerful competition than ever before.  The evidence-based can prick every one of your non-evidence-based bubbles with absolute ease and impunity; one at a time.  That can be a very painful process.

There is only one way out.  Come clean.  Get it off your chest.  Start working from evidence.  It’s a lot simpler and much less painful than what you are doing now.  The real beauty is that you don’t even have to explain yourself to your customers after all – they are no more evidence-based than you are – why do you think it’s called evidence-based management? – and you will be one page ahead.

Whatever criticism they might want to hurl at you is really just self-criticism.  They always knew your competence dictionary was unadulterated gibberish so why did they pretend to support it?  They know they still have serious problems with managing performance (that’s their dirty little secret) so they will welcome anything that makes their lives easier: evidence-based performance management will certainly do that.

Go on – you know you don’t like feeling naked – go and get some clothes on.  Get some evidence.

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Organisational Maturity 1 – All organisations are immature when it comes to learning

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If you are interested in improving your HR maturity level visit IHRM -  The Institute of HR Maturity

Do you remember something called the ‘learning organisation’?  It was all the rage about 15 years ago.  All of a sudden everyone was calling themselves a learning organisation because if you were not a learning organisation then what were you – a stupid organisation perhaps?  It was a no-brainer that you had to jump on this particular bandwagon irrespective of whether you had any understanding of the concept and regardless of how many miles you were away from the reality of what a learning organisation looks and feels like.  No one wanted to be left behind but 15 years later banks, pharmaceutical companies, retailers, manufacturers, universities – you name it – everyone is more in need of effective learning than they ever were.  So let us re-visit what was always a noble aspiration once more and hope that this time around more organisations start to learn what it means to be a true learning organisation.

In effect, all of the early efforts were doomed from the start because organisations were too immature to understand or implement the concept.  Instead, training departments re-badged themselves as learning departments and pretended they could bring about learning across the organisation when, in fact, a learning organisation needs very little input from any department, particularly conventional trainers.

See also Part 2 – HR Maturity and Part 3 – ‘Off the scale’

So where are you and your organisation in terms of learning maturity today?  Try positioning yourself along the Learning Maturity Scale – you can watch the explanatory video here, read the article or visit the Consummate Professional Series

If you need help in assessing your organisation’s HR Maturity contact info@paulkearns.co.uk

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‘You were absolutely wonderful darling’ – Amateur dramatics in L&D

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Some years ago a friend in a local, and very amateur, drama group – we’re talking village halls here not the Royal Shakespeare Company – was about to start rehearsals for their big, annual performance but had to pull out at the last minute.  They were really desperate which is why, despite having never acted in my life, they asked me if I would step in?  Of course, like any am-dram trouper I immediately imagined that maybe this was fate; perhaps I had always had a latent talent that had never been nurtured and was just waiting to burst into life.  Then my imagination ran out of control -  perhaps on the first evening, just by a sheer fluke, Francis Ford Coppola would have chosen that very weekend to visit his long lost, 3rd cousin, twice removed, on a fleeting stop-over in Bristol and somehow would manage to end up seeing me in action and thereby discover the perfect Al Pacino stand-in for the long-awaited ‘Godfather IV’.  So I agreed to give it a go.

Having always followed the principles of being willing to try anything once (within reason) and not being afraid of failure this seemed like it would be a fun experience.  Very quickly though I learned a few tough lessons about acting – or pretending, as I call it.  First, having to learn lines is a real pain in the arse.  Second, it requires immense powers of concentration if you are to do it properly and so can be very hard work. Fortunately these harsh realities were far outweighed by the fact that it did indeed prove to be great fun.  In fact, so much fun was being had by the cast and crew that it suddenly dawned on me that amateur dramatics is not about the play or those who pay to see it but the egos and social lives of the members of the troupe: a perfect analogy for that other pretend world – the world of learning and development.

As a presenter of training sessions myself, or should I say performer, I am only too aware of the thin line between being the truly passionate professional and the effusive luvvie.  For many learning professionals today the performance, or event, is all and many cross the line into luvviedom by extolling only the virtues of learning without pointing out the reality that learning is usually a painful process before you get to the highs of realisation and performance.

Some have been taking this trend much too far by actually employing out of work…. sorry, resting, actors to actually deliver a world of make-believe dressed up as the real thing.  I have met some brilliant actors who might be very convincing as a disgruntled employee or even a hard-nosed manager but, like going to the theatre, I know it’s not real and we should not try to kid ourselves or anyone else that it is.

What it has often resulted in are managers who have been taught some of the thespian’s art of similitude on ‘leadership’ development programmes and the like.  They then try their best to project these outward signs of leadership when we all know that they lack the authenticity and credibility of hard won experience.  Amateur dramatists are fine as long as we never forget they are just that – amateurs.

By the way, Coppola never turned up and my acting career wilted quicker than a saucepan of spinach – oh cruel fate, how can thou be so fickle?

“Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.”
(Hamlet, 3.2.208), Player King

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The Rise and Fall of America’s management ‘empire’.

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There are many, many things that I have come to admire about the ‘American Way’ over the years but human capital management isn’t one of them (nor the subtlety of their automotive designs).

Having experienced, at first hand, the style of people management methods amongst some of the biggest American corporations (Exxon, Ford, GE, GM, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Texaco) it always struck me that any success they achieved was in spite of, rather than because of, their people management.  The evidence to support this view has been growing steadily over the years (and is presented throughout this series) but to get to the heart of what is wrong in American management one only has to look at America’s inability to learn from its own mistakes.

This is most clearly manifest within the very institution that should be promoting learning – the ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) – which always based evaluation of learning on a poorly designed model from 1959 – Kirkpatrick’s 4 levels.  When the design flaws apparent in this model were exposed, during the TQM revolution of the 1980’s, what did ASTD do?  Instead of admitting they had failed, and returning to the drawing board, they moved into hyper-over-engineering  mode and bolted on another superfluous ‘tailfin’* (Jack Phillips’ fatuous ‘level 5’) in the hope that the new look might deceive corporations enough for them to continue employing their members.

So far, American management has fallen for it.  That does not worry me unduly and should please managers from competing countries.  No, what really concerns me is that the ASTD is now trying to force perfectly sensible learning and development people, from around the world, into following its asinine lead. You don’t need to be a historian to realise that all empires go through a natural, rise-and-fall cycle and there is a now a big question mark over the West’s future but is this just another tell-tale sign of it entering its descendency phase.  By the way, the word ‘descendency’ does not appear in either American or English dictionaries.

It is equally well documented that the grieving process tends to follow five phases of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, finally, acceptance.  So you might think that the US is already well into the bargaining phase; as evidenced by its internal, political wrangling over its inability to tackle its huge debt, but actually America is still firmly in denial. They are still trying to convince themselves and the world that HCM is something they are actually quite good at.  This is why, if you want the ASTD’s blessing, you will have to attend one of Phillips’ garage workshops on how to add an enormous and costly tailfin to your ‘Mini’ (or whatever model you drive).  It might look ridiculous and not fit very well but you’re stuck with it because it only comes in one size – ROI.

You would be forgiven for thinking that, as a Brit, I am being partisan here if it were not for the fact that I am the first to admit that we are no better at HCM in the UK.  We might take a less ostentatious, more thoughtful, approach but thoughts don’t amount to a hill of beans.  To experience minds that are completely open to new ways of addressing the human dimension of large corporations (and Governments) you need to travel much further East; to a very different, underlying philosophy.  We have been here once before, when the Japanese taught the West a few lessons about how to manufacture efficiently, but there was always so much more that we needed to learn – not least of which was some humility.

When I teach in the East** myself I know they don’t have all the answers either but their great strength is that, unlike the Americans, they don’t try to pretend that they do – and neither do I.  Empires that are built on hubris crash and burn for the very same reason.  When you have believed that you are the best for so long you tend to breed people who either believe their own hype or, worse still, are too frightened to challenge it – why do you think Hitler employed Goebbels?  When hype trumps reality learning ceases and the problems really start.

I still think early reports of the West’s demise are, in the words of one wise American – Mark Twain – greatly exaggerated, but my own prediction would be that the next, most sustainable, management empire is likely to be founded on clear evidence that management is learning to best serve society – not some ugly tailfin.

*Many other evaluation models have emanated from the US over the last 30 years or so – all of them adding unnecessary paraphernalia and gadgets rather than focusing on super-charging the engine.

**Beyond Evaluation & ROI

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EBHR is worth $ billions

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No organisation is ever going to try out EBHR if they cannot see the $ value in it so it is about time I put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.  There cannot be a better example than the pharmaceutical industry.  All large pharma companies have large HR and learning departments who are supposed to be adding some value, and they may well be, but only a tiny fraction of what they could.  They do not focus on the highest value aspects of pharma, which are unsustainably high development costs combined with low success rates. Figures quoted in a Sunday Times article “Glaxo enters the dragons’ den” on 21st August 2011 (attributed to Evaluate Pharma) showed that –

“… spending by pharmaceutical groups on R&D was $88 billion in 2004.  It has risen every year, bar one, since… and this year is forecast to reach $133 billion. Yet the companies investing these vast sums are getting fewer and fewer results.  …. For every 5,000 new compounds that enter pre-clinical trials only 5 will end up being tested on humans. Of those 5 only 1 will make it to the market.”

Pharma has become one huge sink hole with fewer and fewer blockbuster drugs to compensate.

None of this is news to anyone observing the industry and I have been tracking it from an evidence-based, human capital perspective for many years now.  I have worked with a wide range of pharma companies over the years and only once did I see an HR team trying to do anything about it, about 15 years ago, and that was GSK.  They failed though because they did not adopt the simplest tenets of evidence-based management; even though pharma is inherently an evidence-based industry.  When I asked them what they were trying to achieve they said they needed to improve the success rate of their ‘drug discovery’ process but nowhere in their efforts did they produce any evidence or measure who were the most and least successful researchers in discovering the drugs that got to market.  EBHR is not complex, it is simple and even a small improvement is worth billions to these corporations and the societies that have to pay for them.

So has GSK learned any lessons?  Here is a quote from the article by Moncef Slaoui, GSK’s Chairman of research and development and “a 23 year Glaxo veteran” about their latest ‘dragon’s den’ attempts -

“Three years is long enough to know whether we are failing but too short to know whether we are succeeding. I don’t think this system has failed; we are moving in the right direction.  How successful we are, we’ll see. … I would like to see another (funding) round in three years – that’s the time it takes.”

I’m sorry Moncef, you have had a lot longer than 3 years to start getting this right. You are not being evidence-based and neither are you managing your human capital well.  If you do not know whether you are succeeding or not then neither do your researchers.  GSK’s ‘plan B’ , using external development labs, is not the best solution though because it will seriously limit GSK’s capability for creating value, impacting on their share price and market capitalisation.

The whole of the pharma industry, more than any other industry I know, needs EBHR.  We should all hope they discover it soon because we cannot afford $133 billion a year to provide so few drugs.

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The last word on Learning Needs Analysis (LNA)

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Adopting an evidence-based approach to learning and development is not new – far from it.  Trainers just have to do what they have always been taught to do – learning needs analysis (LNA) and evaluation.  These two crucial steps are inseparable – two sides of the same coin – the yin and yang of individual and organisational learning.  The purpose of the original TNA (training needs analysis) was to provide the evidence-base to justify spending money on training: the purpose of evaluation was to ensure the money was invested wisely.  In other words LNA is an individual needs analysis as part of a business investment appraisal process.

As we saw earlier though trainers have never had a workable model to deal with the evaluation aspects of evidence gathering.  Now we have to explore whether there is any guarantee either that they will bother to undertake a proper, evidence-based, needs analysis.  Visit any training provider (me included) offering training courses or workshops, or any in-house L&D department offering its own menu of programmes, and you will witness ‘learning solutions’ (sic) being offered without any analysis of the learning needs of those who might participate.  Any professional who supports this will have to admit that they are breaking all their own rules.  It should be outlawed and, if I am as guilty as anyone else, what should I do about it?

Well, first let me declare that I fully accept the crucial importance of LNA in principle even if I don’t always do it in practice.  That might sound hypocritical but how many ‘learning professionals’ would at least be willing to admit the same?  Second, I am bringing it to your attention, and anyone else who cares to read this, in an attempt to increase the incidence of proper LNA.  Third, I am prepared to make myself very unpopular by exposing bad practice and the stupid organisational behaviour it produces.  Fourth, I have at least offered part of the solution already with a very simple Baseline Model and fifth, I am now going to complete the set with the last word on what learning needs analysis really means. There is probably a sixth and a seventh but what have you been doing about it?

Let’s re-visit what we were taught about the old-fashioned TNA. If you want to train someone in customer service, say in the hotel trade, the business has to decide what standard of service it wants to provide (e.g. every customer should be greeted with a friendly smile and asked ‘can I help you?’).  This is OK for basic training and it would be easy to do a spot check (evaluate) that the training is being applied. If the hotel wants to differentiate itself from its competitors though, by raising its own standards, the trainer needs to gather more evidence before designing any training.

  • ‘What do higher standards look like – would it be speedier response times at the desk?
  • ‘Are we measuring that already?’
  • ‘So what if we are speedier, does that produce more value in $’s?’

So far so professional but move away from basic training and soon the rules of the game, the principles that mark out the professional, are jettisoned remarkably quickly.  Yet the very reason TNA started to become known as LNA was because we all eventually realised that training was just input (e.g. sending people on generic management modules) and learning had to be applied if it was to produce a beneficial output (i.e. more satisfied, paying customers).  Somewhere along this line though LNA forgot its TNA roots and became a much broader concept; to the extent that many ‘learning professionals’ today have started suggesting that no LNA is needed because ‘all learning is good’.

This is not a principle I have ever been taught and my 30 years of experience clearly demonstrates this is patently untrue.  If you subscribe to this notion why do we still pay for training these days when so much learning can be had  for free?  Conversely, if all learning is good, go and ask your board for a 1000% increase in the training budget and see what response you get.  It doesn’t stand up well does it?  Yet this fuzzy logic has been exploited by the technology-obsessed, ‘e-learning’, social media advocates who do not know how to justify what they are doing.  Often business needs are forgotten altogether and there is no attempt at Baseline evaluation.  In effect, the ‘new’ training providers have been taking several steps backwards for years, moving further and further away from the fundamental tenets of learning whilst trying to pretend they are transforming the way we learn (why do you think they never chose to call it e-training?).

There is a simple solution.  Having admitted my own guilt, the first thing I try to do is make up for the lack of individual, learning needs analyses whenever I can.  If you have not already read What is EBM or The Case for EB-HR then I would advise you to do so now because that is exactly what these pages were designed to do; to make sure you are in the right place.

If we should ever meet in a classroom and you are not sure why you are there I would ask whether you want to come back when you know and remind you that you need to come back with your own Baseline, because you can only start from where you are, regardless of where the rest of the class might be.  If you show no interest in sticking to these rules I would recommend that you do not stay, not just because you are unlikely to learn very much but because I am passionate about learning and I want you to be passionate as well.  By the way, there is no such thing as a ‘generic’ or ‘group’ LNA – we can only learn as individuals – even though we are all under pressure to conform to group behaviour.

One of the key advantages of analysing an individual’s learning needs is that we want to avoid upsetting, or getting in the way of, those who are genuinely there to learn.  Maybe that is why very few trainers are inclined or even allowed to perform a proper LNA – it might be too embarrassing to realise just how inappropriate and ineffective a lot of training is; whether it is in the classroom or online.

The last word? LNA is not an option – it’s a professional duty.

For personal development linked to this topic visit the Consummate Professional Series

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EBM – Doing it for real – Lesson 10 – Design Human Systems

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In our continued exploration of organisational anatomy and the strategic management framework you should have noticed by now a distinct emphasis here on the human aspects. In reality the human dimension is rarely, if ever, fully taken into account; especially where the name of the game is speculation or early exits by private equity partners.  Nevertheless, every CEO should know they have to install effective systems of control if the word ‘management’ is to mean anything.  Wherever systems are absent or ineffective disaster awaits.

The IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) yesterday released its ‘Preliminary Assessment’ of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, following the Japanese tsunami in March 2011, and obviously wants to reassure the rest of the world that the situation is under control, acknowledging that “Nuclear regulatory systems should address extreme events adequately”.  However other reports suggest there was already plenty of evidence that no effective systems were in place.  So we need to look at what constitutes an effective management system and, again, particularly highlight how making systems human, in every sense of the word, is an absolute imperative.

Lesson 10

Design all systems to be human.

Practical application

The picture above is from a client’s brand new, state-of-the-art, premises that includes security doors that only allow pass holders to enter.  Unfortunately the door shown was on the way to the coffee/breakout area and it became a real pain having to get our passes out every time, so someone just took the law into their own hands and decided to subvert the whole ‘system’ by jamming a chair in the way (which was marginally less hassle to negotiate).  The reason I put system in quotes is obviously because it did not qualify as a system and that is the first part of this lesson – be absolutely clear in your own mind what a system is.

The definition of system that I use is –

A system is a means by which you ensure that what you want to happen actually happens.

A computer operating system operates the computer; a road sign system shows you how to get from A to B; an invoice system makes sure you get paid.  Unfortunately the sea wall ‘system’ constructed in Japan, which was designed to ensure a tsunami did not reach the reactor, failed to prevent a tsunami reaching the reactor and a chair jammed in a doorway failed to stop non-pass holders entering.

Of course systems designers will always excuse themselves, before they even start, by saying no system is perfect, which is true, but that does not mean they should not keep perfection as their goal and remove as many of the imperfections as possible. They should also realise that most imperfections emanate from that intrinsically, imperfect resource – human beings – that is why human resource management systems are so crucial in all organisations.  So who is going to design them?

HR people are very poor systems designers.  They talk about performance management systems that don’t produce performance, reward systems that don’t match rewards to results and learning and development refer to ‘learning management systems’ that don’t gauge learning, application or impact. So what are the rules of great, human, systems design?

  1. Don’t ever refer to a system being in place unless you can confidently state – “What we want to happen is ……… and this system will ensure that happens.”
  2. Fill the blank in 1. above with a crystal clear purpose and that purpose should always be an output or outcome (e.g. traffic lights have 2 purposes – safety and traffic flow; banking regulation systems guarantee that banks have enough money to pay creditors – hahaha)
  3. Make it idiot proof – even the most mechanical systems will have a human element that can undermine the whole system (e.g. the lights might be on red but one person fails to stop, stupid bankers buy derivatives they don’t understand)
  4. Only allow people to make decisions or take actions within their capabilities, which have to be checked (i.e. regulators take certificates away from transgressors)
  5. If anyone tries to bypass the system have a back up system in place to alert you (e.g. the open door sets off an alarm after a certain time, mortgage applications are checked to make sure they are kosher)
  6. Think of the most unlikely disaster that could happen (e.g. tsunamis higher than the walls you are designing, a run on a bank) and then design your system accordingly, making sure the people running the system have the balls to enforce it.

We will never achieve perfect systems but just imagine how much better the world would be if we at least produced evidence that we had done everything possible to make them human-proof?

For personal development linked to this topic visit the Consummate Professional Series

Postscript.

Once you start spotting human system failures you see them everywhere – here’s one sent to me by a former student from my MBA (HR Strategy) class.

 

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Evaluation of learning – 3 simple rules of the game

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When is a profession not a profession?  When it fails to follow its own professional advice.  Imagine a surgeon saying – ‘Yes, I know the operating theatre should be a sterile environment but hey, what are a few bacteria among friends?’  Well that is exactly the sort of attitude adopted by the vast majority of training ‘professionals’ towards the subject of evaluation. They know their own professional standards demand they evaluate – as a very specific requirement in the learning needs, design, delivery, and evaluation cycle – but studiously avoid doing so.

So let’s try re-phrasing this.  If we said that trainers do not collect any evidence that their methods work we might expect them to be operating in very ‘dirty departments’.  Of course, if you’re teaching a bricklayer to lay bricks this does not matter too much because you at least have the evidence that the wall is still standing (or not).  However, as soon as you move away from physical evidence (e.g. soft skills, talent development, diversity, leadership) who knows what ‘nasty bacteria’ the trainer might be cultivating in this breeding ground?

So why do trainers still resist evaluation so fiercely?  If they don’t like it why don’t they just change the syllabus? Well because they can’t.  Evaluation is not an optional extra, it is a fundamental element in learning theory – it is the feedback loop that reinforces the right behaviour. Think of the consequences of not doing evaluation – surgeons operating on patients without checking survival rates; rail companies not checking whether train drivers obey red signals; handing over your car keys to someone without a driving licence.  All of these have happened in real life and it is only when people die that we decide we have to act to plug the gaps.  So how can we continue to call some people ‘managers’ or, worse still, ‘leaders’ without any feedback that reassures us they know what they are doing?  If we don’t the potential consequences will be just as disastrous.

In my experience there are two broad reasons why trainers’ practices fail to live up to any proper, professional standards. First, many ‘trainers’ are not professionally trained; so either do not understand the important role of evaluation or just dismiss it as unnecessary.  Second, even if they attend a ‘professional trainer’s course’  the people teaching them don’t know the rules of evaluation or how to apply them. So what is the answer?

Actually it is extremely simple, but not easy, because it demands that we set the same standards as the surgeon, with no compromise allowed. The standard for anyone purporting to be a professional, evidence-based trainer, can be expressed in terms of 3 sacrosanct rules.

  1. Accept that all learning (and therefore training and development input) has to be based on a closed-loop feedback cycle. So if you are supposedly ‘developing managers’ you need to reach a point where you can say they have been developed effectively.
  2. Agree what ‘developed effectively’ means, in advance (not after the event as most evaluation models suggest) with each of the trainees.  This has to be defined in terms of an output related to the role for which the person is being developed.  For example, an ‘effective negotiator’ needs to spell out what that means – higher margins, more contracts, more durable customer relationships?
  3. Realise evaluation always means value – that’s a financial matter.  If there is no anticipated financial benefit to the business then there is no justification for spending any money on pure ‘training’ activity (defined as an input with no expected output).

All of these rules, yes they are unequivocal rules, are broken on a regular basis in every organisation I have ever worked with.  Yet when they are fully understood, and applied consistently, they become the founding principles of a true learning organisation.  Unlike the surgeon though, this is not intended to create a sterile environment, quite the opposite, it will be the most fertile ground you could ever possibly imagine in which beneficial learning will flourish.

For personal development linked to this topic visit the Consummate Professional Series

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EBM – Doing it for real – Lesson 2 – All evidence must relate to value

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If you read Lesson 1 you might have noticed that we did not achieve what we set out to do – there was no evidence base agreed by the end of the Lesson, only a pointer to more questions.  So you might be wondering ‘why leave a lesson hanging in the air?’ – to which I can only reply – ‘get used to it, this is evidence-based management and no one said it would be easy.’

The whole point of evidence-based management is to establish evidence and that is where all the problems start – and the vast majority of them end.  It takes as long as it takes and the chances are you will be working with those who have little regard for, or understanding of, evidence so you are unlikely to arrive at the evidence you need at the first attempt.

Also, consider for a moment some of the most disastrous decisions you have ever experienced and the chances are they were decisions based on little or no evidence in the first place: they either ignored available evidence or were a genuine leap into the dark, which sometimes happens.  Yet it is these very features that will mark you out as a professional, EB manager.  You will have to make very few, if any, leaps into the dark and you will be absolutely determined to work from evidence.  What you now need to know is what constitutes acceptable evidence? That is the subject for Lesson 2.

Lesson 2

All evidence must relate to value.

Practical application

You are probably making decisions all the time, every day.  Most of this decision making will be of minor importance and you will happily and competently make sound decisions based on a combination of your expertise, experience, judgement and common sense. EB managers do more than this though, they add the most important layer of all onto this decision making platform – they consciously seek out evidence, particularly and especially when there is no obvious evidence available. Let us refer back to Lesson 1.

The Sales Director could be described as a conventional manager and had grown to hold the belief that there was an equation that showed:-

activity = sales = profit

and his belief was driving him to increase sales activity.

The strength of his beliefs could even have been born out by hard won experience of ‘witnessing’ an apparent correlation between activity and sales over many years.  Yet this would never elevate his management prowess to that of the EB manager, simply because he was using only a partial equation.  If there were indeed a connection between activity and sales then the full equation would have to be: -

activity = sales = profit = value (£’s)

If the difference between profit and value needs explaining suffice it to say that many bankers and mortgage sales people made huge ‘profits’ from mis-selling sub-prime mortgages.  That same mortgage debt then destroyed an immense amount of value in the form of the huge national debt we now have to pay off.  I rest my case.

The Sales Director in question was just as guilty by only being concerned with covering the two parts of this equation for which he was accountable (activity and sales volumes). So before anything could be done about this it was necessary to look at how sales volumes may or may not have been affecting profits, before checking whether they had any probability of producing that ultimate goal – value.  That is always a lot easier said than done, especially when the organisation becomes bigger and more complex.  So be prepared for many more lessons in EBM before you can see the complete picture.

One thing we can say with absolute certainty though is that any management decision that is not connected to value is, by definition, a bad decision and will make the organisation worse rather than better.  This is particularly true of those who are accountable for the big, ‘people’ decisions or what they laughingly refer to as their ‘HR Strategy’.  If you haven’t already done so you might like to look at some of the earlier pieces in this series to see many examples of HR Strategies that have no connection to evidence of value whatsoever and ask yourself what are these people doing to their organisations?  One of the better examples of how not to do EBM is still happening in Cambridge and all other local government bodies as we speak; at a time when they are having to deal with the largest cuts in funding they have experienced for many years. It is likely, therefore, that this will inevitably result in a significantly larger reduction in value to taxpayers and service users than the cuts themselves should warrant.

For personal development linked to this topic visit the Consummate Professional Series

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