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HandoutforLearningandSkillsGroup
What Would Andrew Do?
How to sell senior management on the value of learning. (Cross)
Excerpts
TheMetricsCycle
Theres no cookie-cutter formula for applying metrics, but there is an underlying
process. Generally, youll follow these five steps to identify, agree upon, assess, and
use metrics. This is not rocket science. Its the same process you already use to
accomplish a lot of things in life. Lets briefly consider each step.
1. State Desired Outcome. Results do not exist inside the trainingdepartment. In fact, results do not exist within the business. Results come
from outside the business. Imagine a no-nonsense businessperson, say,
Andrew Carnegie. If you can explain yourself to Andrew, youve mastered thisstep.
2. Agree How To Measure. The only valid metrics for corporate learning arebusiness metrics. Examples are increased sales, shorter time-to-market,
fewer rejects, and lower costs. How do you decide what measures to apply?
You dont: thats the responsibility of your business sponsor, the person whosigns the checks. Together you agree on whats to be done and how youll
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measure success or failure. Once youve settled on the project and its
metrics, get it in writing.
3. Execute Project(s). The projects could be training and/or an incentivebonus plan and/or more advertising. Training programs are often part of a
larger scheme, and its fruitless to try to isolate them. In fact, savvy training
directors look for major corporate initiatives they can hitchhike a ride on. Gowith the flow, dont fight it.
4. Assess Results. You must evaluate the impact of your efforts with themeasures you set up back in step 2. In other words, you are not allowed tomimic Charlie Brown, who would shoot an arrow and then paint the target
around it. Why stick with the measures you came up with before? Because
thats how to maintain credibility with your sponsor. You can bring upunforeseen outcomes or anecdotal evidence, so long as you follow up on
those original methods first.
5. Begin Anew. The only thing worse than learning from experience is not
learning from experience. Your post-mortem on the completed project shouldinclude a section titled What to do better next time. This is where you startthe cycle anew.
6. All my examples are drawn from business. That is the focus of this particulareffort. Many of the same techniques work well in government and education
as well, but those are not my areas of expertise.
WhatMakesanEffectiveExecutive?(Drucker)
They asked, "What needs to be done?"
They asked, "What is right for the enterprise?" They developed action plans.
They took responsibility for decisions.
They took responsibility for communicating.
They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
They ran productive meetings.
They thought and said "we" rather than "I."
TalkingwithYourSponsor
Executives focus on one thing: execution. You need to figure out what your sponsor
hopes to execute.
You get his or her take on the firms near term objectives, to suggest what you planto do to meet them, and to agree on how success or failure will be measured. This
step is not optional.
Tell your sponsor you want to understand her business objectives. Be a performance
consultant. Act like its a different game than the one you usually play.
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Subtract ten points each time you say learner, learning object, instructionaldesign, blended, program, instructor, content, or asynchronous.
Add ten points each time you say reduce time to market, improveproductivity, speed up cycle time, streamline the way we do business, serve
customers better, slash costs, improve partner relationships and knowledge,increase market share, etc.
Add ten more points each time you personalize whats above: reduce our timeto market, improve our productivity, speed up our cycle time, etc.
Got it? Your challenge is to find out how your sponsor sees her corporate and unit
objectives. You need to know enough to make concrete recommendations.
Whatsinitforme?
(ASTD/IBM)
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Theplayersandtheirneeds
(Cross)
TimeMatters
While training directors may have different objectives from CEOs, everyone in
todays business world shares one need: they want it all now. Benefits you dont see
for two years are hardly benefits at all. Given enough time, a million monkeys at a
million terminals could develop your entire curriculum, complete with Flashanimations and a repository of SCORM-compliant objects. Nobodys got time to wait.
The appropriate time metric for most eLearning is time-to-proficiency. How long will
it be until your people are performing competently? By competent, I mean able to
meet or exceed the expectations of customers, be they internal or external to theorganization.
Time-to-proficiency depends on a multitude of factors. Before the first learner enters
the system comes prep time:
Time to assess needs and specify solutions
Time to hire or train development staff
Time to create new lessons or re-purpose existing ones
Time to implement technical infrastructure
Time to make sure all the parts work together
Time to publish, often a combination of print, CD, and web
Then theres time spent learning.
Time to access the lessons
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Time in self study
Time in practice
Time for proficiency testing
Time for reinforcement
Timing is perpetually traded off with breadth and cost. A Fortune 100 company can
justify investing years to develop its in-house corporate university.
PushandPull
Organizational learning tends to be mostly push or mostly pull. Push is the sort of
learning you encountered in school, where authorities selected the curriculum and
lessons were imposed on you. Pull describes the way you learn from Google or
discovered how to kiss a lover. With pull learning, you select what you want to learn
and how you want to learn it.
Pull learning is more cost-effective. It doesnt require as much in the way of controlmechanisms, structure, and outside assistance. Furthermore, lessons learned
through pull are more likely to stick because theyre relevant to perceived need,delivered when required, and usually reinforced with immediate application. Pull
learning delivers more bang for the buck.
Organizations that increase the ratio of pull to push can lower their overall
investment in learning without sacrificing results. Given the greater payback of pull
learning, the objective is to achieve greater results while spending less.
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Why am I advocating cutting the overall spend? Because its an easier concept tosell. Managers have been skeptical of the value of training for decades. One hopes
that the lure of the Holy Grail of achieving more from less is an offer they cantrefuse.
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EvaluatingthepaybackofLearnscapes
ReturnonInvestmentinInteraction
(Cross & Husband)
The focus in this new world of work is to do whats important and involve those whoknow whats important, why its important and what they know (or know how to find
out) about a problem or issue.
So, to begin measuring increases in productivity and value in a networked social
computing environment, we propose the concept of Return on Investment in
Interaction (ROII), which we have derived from the principles of Metcalfes Law of
Networks.
Lets define some core assumptions about ROII :
1.Continuous flows of information are the raw material of an organizations valuecreation and overall performance.
2.Information flows are carried by links, alerts, RSS feeds, search engines,
aggregation and filtering of content, etc.3.All leading vendors productivity platforms now feature collaborative social
networking and computing,
4.These platforms architectures facilitate purposeful cross-silo communications
and exchange.
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Social networking pioneer Valdis Krebs has outlined four generic metrics that are
becoming widely accepted as leading to observable, tangible, measurable outputs:
(Footnote: Krebs, V., Measuring the value of social computing in social networks,
The Network Weaver blog, June 29,2008)
1. Increase in size of network
2. Increase in internal network connectivity
3. Increase in connection to valuable 3rd parties4. Increase in number of projects
DimensionsofTodaysLearningProcess
(Cross, Learnscaping)
Business contextCore/contextObject orientationBottom-upCustomer voiceUnpredictableIncessant changeServices/intangibles
Network effectsDense interconnectionsAccelerating cycle timeInterdependenceVolatilityLong tailAmbient findabilitySignal:noise
LearningInformalAdaptationBecomingKnow-whoDrip feedNeed-drivenPerformance support
WorldviewEmergenceIllusion of controlHolisticPerpetual betaEverything flowsAll is connectedProcess
KnowledgeCollective intelligenceSocially-constructedContext-boundBreakdown of disciplinesGroup phenomenonSocial intelligenceCognitive breakthroughs
Internet valuesConnectionsOpennessTransparencyAuthenticityInteractivityLoosely coupledInteroperability
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ProfitandLossExample
Imagine that my roadside stand sells $100 worth of lemonade and my total expenses
were $20 I spend on lemons, sugar, and paint for my sign. Fill in the blanks:
Lemonade Stand Results
Profit = ________________
Margin = ________________
Revenue = ________________
Cost = ________________
Cash flow = ________________
Earnings = ________________
Price/earnings ratio = ________________
ROI = ________________
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Industrial-age problems
Check any that apply to your organization
Substandard revenue Sales are declining, customers are postponing decisions
Sales force cannot express benefits of new products
Sellers unaware of industry conditions and competition
Friction in relationships with distributors
Our partners are not well informed
Sales and marketing are on different planets
Arms-length relationships with customers
Deficient service
Response time to customers is substandard After-sales inquiries are bogging down our call centers
800 numbers and phone trees are driving customers away
Service is inconvenient for customers, not 24/7 We dont learn from our customers
Not building customer loyalty
Customer and prospects are confused, frustrated
Inefficiency and bureaucracy
Deluged by internal email
Cant find the right person in a hurry
People dont know who knows what
Cant the right information when you need it
Project coordination is tedious and things fall through the cracks
Re-invent the same documents and processes over and over again
Departments squabble more often than they collaborate
Dont learn from the people who join us from competitors
Execs cant get a read of progress or lack thereof
Documentation is dated, versions confuse
Unenthusiastic, sluggish staff
Recruiting is harder than ever
Some do the minimum to get by
People are not innovators and dont keep up
Our know-how is walking out the door due to retirement and turnover
People are glum because of the economy, an industry slump, whatever
Turnover is too high
When good people leave, we never see or hear from them again
No time for experimentation or prototyping
Underdeveloped organization
Difficult to collaborate inside the corporate firewall
Difficult to collaborate outside the corporate firewall
People prefer to work solo than on teams
Takes too long for new hires to become productive
Analysis paralysis
Wait and see attitude = missed opportunities
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Culture clash, as if we are two organizations with different priorities
Suboptimal execution
Not everyone is on the same page
Our people dont know our history, values, culture
Set in our ways, reluctant to change
Not moving fast enough to stay ahead of competitors Functional silos thwart process improvement
Still acting like two separate organizations long after the merger
Hard to find out where we are as an organization
Teams dont talk about the trends and force that drive our business
Dont reflect on the lessons of our successes and failures
Dont take advantage of our collective intelligence
Not learning
We are falling behind
Not prepared for onslaught of digital natives
Training cant keep pace with the business
Learning systems are outgrowth of classroom
Training administration, creation, and delivery cost too much Managers hoard information
Not learning fast enough to keep up with the needs of our business
References
ASTD/IBM Strategic Value of Learning Research Report. 2006. Sugrue, Brenda;
ODriscoll, Tony; and Vona, Mary Kay.
Cross, Jay. 2009. What Would Andrew Do?How to sell senior management on the
value of organizational learning. Internet Time Press. $19.99 from jaycross.com
Cross, Jay. 2009. Working Smarter: Boosting Brainpower for Fun and Profit. $14 on
Amazon.
Cross, Jay. 2008. Learnscaping: Getting Things Done in Organizations. Internet Time
Press. $25 from jaycross.com
Cross, Jay and Husband, Jon. Return on Investment in Interaction, Not Your Fathers
ROI. Chief Learning Officer magazine. To be pubished July 2009.
Drucker, Peter. What Makes an Effective Executive, Harvard Business Review, Vol.
82, No. 6, June 2004.