team building organization development leadership expert michael cardus

“Our attendance rates in training has increased by 3.2%.”

“What does that mean?”

“More people are attending our internal company training.”

“Yes, they are; what does that increase in attendance mean to the work that gets completed when people are not in the training rooms?”

“I’m not sure; why?”

“Are you sure that is what you should be measuring, attendance?”

“Well, it is what we can measure?’

“Can you control attendance?”

“no”

“Can you control who shows up and who does not?”

“no”

“Does increased attendance impact the learning of participants, and how they apply that learning to their work?”

“I don’t know…but it is what we can measure.”

“I know that is what you can measure. Are you sure that it is what you should measure?”

On to the Inquiry:

Just because you can measure something, should you?

The discussion above really happened between a training director at an international bank and me. She was really excited about the rise in attendance and that she could show improvement with that metric.

I agree it is great that 3.2% more people attended the training.

Does this measurement matter? Does it matter that it has anything to do with the customer (internal employees and external customers) and shows an impact on the work?

  • What do you measure just for measurement’s sake?
  • If you could connect that measurement to improved work, in what ways would it be the same? In what ways would it be different?
  • With the data you have, what does it tell you?
  • What else could you measure?
  • If you could choose to measure the “perfect indicator of success,” what would that look like?
  • What information would that share?
  • In what ways might that affect your work?

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