Hey, Megan, let's do a podcast.

Great idea. What should we talk about?

Imagine this. You walk into a clothing store and you find a salesperson and you say, where can I find your athletic wear? Because I've decided I'm going to do a triathlon. And they say, okay, great, I've got some questions for you. And you answer the questions, and then they're nodding along and then they say to you, all right, what I think you really need, actually is not some new workout clothing, but you need a therapist. Cause you're going through a midlife crisis.

Wait, did this happen to you?

No, this is. This is a fake story. I don't think this would actually ever happen. Because like most people, when you go into a clothing store, they're there to sell you clothing. They're gonna do their job and sell you the thing that they have to sell you.

That you asked for.

That you asked for. But I tell you this story because, like, this is kind of what we do in L and D.

Well, we hould explain where this all started. We were at a book launch webinar with Alaina Szlachta. Congratulations, Alaina, on your book Woo hoo. And all of a sudden, JD Dillon says something like, ours might be the only industry that leads with what we do might not be the best answer for you. And we thought that was kind of funny.

It is funny. Similar to all people in all different industries, we want our work to have meaning and purpose. And when you think about it, the purpose and meaning behind what we do in workplace learning is for people to do their jobs better. So the purpose of our role in workplace learning is not to make learning itself. Maybe training isn't the answer to the problem that you're coming to us with. But whatever it is that we do, which often is to make learning experiences for that to help people to do their jobs.

And sometimes training just isn't the answer to what can we do to help people do their jobs better. Right? And. And we know this right from Gilbert's behavioral engineering model to binder six boxes, which is based on that, to just about anything that the ISPI folks say or Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson and the five moments of need. Training isn't always the answer. And this isn't anything new. We've been talking about this a lot in L and D. It's just that it struck us funny during the webinar that we might be the only industry that actually leads with the line, we may not be the solution to your problem. Take your money Elsewhere.

Yep. But we were there to celebrate the book launch of Alayna Shlochta's Measurement and Evaluation on a Shoestring from ATD Press. And it just occurred to us that often the things that we measure aren't really the right things. They're either not useful or in some cases, we might actually be harmful in the things that we're measuring. What do I mean by that? So, like, there is this quote. I think we used it in. In a different episode too. Will Talheimer, he has a new book called CEOs Guide to Training, Elearning and Work and Life and the Universe and everything.

Just kidding. That that last part's not in it. But he says we evaluate training based on learners feelings of satisfaction, how they liked their instructors, and whether they'd recommend training to others. Will says this may be the root of all evil in the training field. And he goes on to say, it pushes your learning team to build training that makes people happy rather than training that's effective in building competence and skill.

And I love this because you've got this quote in giant text on one of the slides in your presentation that you did at Dev Learn and at ATD in Ann Arbor, and it brings down the house every single time. Like the whole room just goes, whoa.

Yeah. People get out their phones and take pictures of the slides. And I even got an email from somebody the other day that said, hey, I really want to share your deck with somebody. Because that quote, you know, was really meaningful.

We should, like, be in the book selling business for people, for other people's books. Maybe ours, too. But anyways, so this was funny because you and I were in the. The book launch webinar and messaging each other back and forth and. And thinking about this, right? Why does it matter that we're measuring the wrong things? Everybody says you should get data. And it's very easy to get data, data about some stuff like do people like the course? But not only it's a. It's a waste of time, right? But you've heard of the whole what gets measured gets done, right? The point that we pay attention to the things that get measured, the things that other people clearly care about because they asked us to measure them. So we collect the data, we analyze the data, we present that analysis for those things that we think other people care about because they asked for the data, or for those things that we can easily get our hands on.

And then the next, like, we have what gets measured gets done. What gets measured gets managed. And that's what will's talking about if we measure learner satisfaction, we manage to that instead of focusing on the more valuable measures of learning and outcomes. So I got another quote for you. Ready?

Mm.

Not to make this, like, battle of the quotes or anything, but also at DevLearn, our mutual friend and colleague Zolt Hola, he mentioned a similar saying, which is what gets measured, gets designed for. Ooh, yeah.

So Simon Culkin will tell himer Joel Ola. They all have cautionary tales for us that are really important right now. It's never been easier to collect data in learning and development.

Lots of data, Lots of data.

All the data. Right. And when we have data, we gain power and influence and a seat at the table, which is what we want. So it behooves us to not only get the data right, get the analysis right, get the presentation right, but to be measuring the right thing in the first place.

So I'm guessing we don't want to be measuring satisfaction, and I'm guessing not Net Promoter Score either.

I'm not saying not to measure that. You can collect them, they're useful on their face. But just don't stop there and don't let anyone think that those two substitute for actually evaluating the results and the impact of our work.

Got it.

So, Megan, how'd that go?

I think it was good. I think you and I are really starting to dig in deeply on what do we measure, why do we measure, when do we measure? And so being able to thread all these thoughts together is really powerful for us.

Yeah. It's also making me think about how we've sort of gone through this evolution where we were focused heavily on xAPI and getting the data. Get the data, get the data, get the data. And I see us now moving in this new direction where it's like, okay, but it's more. It's about more than that. We have to do something. Well, first of all, we need the right data and we gotta do something useful and meaningful with it.

So not just get the data, but.

Get the data right.

Ooh. Conference presentation.

This is Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance, and this has been a podcast from Torrance Learning. Tangents is the official podcast of Torrance Learning, as though we have an unofficial one. Tangents is hosted by Meg Fairchild and Megan Torrance. It's produced by Dean Castile and Meg Fairchild. Engineered and edited by Dean Castile, with original music also by Dean Castile. This episode was fact checked by Meg Fairchild.