Training Industry Magazine - July/August 2020 - 17

SAM SHRIVER & MARSHALL GOLDSMITH

BUILDING
LEADERS

DATA FLUENCY
AND YOUR HIGHEST PROBABILITY
OF SUCCESS
Probability has long been the
distinguishing factor between physical
and behavioral sciences. In physics, force
equals mass times acceleration - every
time! If you know how much a baseball
weighs and how fast it travels when your
granddaughter throws it while playing
catch in the driveway, you can accurately
determine the force the ball had when it
shattered the windshield of your car.
Consider the difference between that
scenario and determining the relationship
between your organization's leadership
training efforts and business outcomes.
You must first come to terms with the
fact there is no uniform standard of
measurement. Frustrating though it may
be, evidence produced to evaluate the
impact of training in the past may not be
relevant predictors moving forward.
In a world with an intimidating abundance
of information available, your first challenge
is to distinguish the data that matters from
the data that might be interesting from
the data that really doesn't tell you much.
From our perspective, we consider data
fluency the ability to connect the dots
along a continuum flowing downward
from results through habits and leading
indicators to the learning itself.
RESULTS
What is the bottom-line impact of training?
This has always been a tough question for
learning leaders. Primarily because there
are many intervening variables, and they
are next to impossible to isolate. It's such
a tough question that many consistently
high-performing organizations avoid

it altogether. The costs associated with
confirming their belief that learning is
embedded in achievement of corporate
goals are simply too high.
In short, we agree. If you are in a set of
circumstances where you must sit down
with your chief financial officer and
definitively project a return on this year's
investment in training, may the force be
with you!
HABITS
Charles Duhigg discussed the potential
of keystone habits in his best-selling book
"The Power of Habit." A keystone habit is
a measurable pattern of behavior with the
clear potential to increase the likelihood
of achieving desired results. Duhigg asks
readers to take safety as an example. If
you can get employees in a manufacturing
organization to become laser focused
on safety, it impacts communication,
accountability, efficiency and more.
Clearly establishing, continuously
improving and relentlessly measuring
the connection between the learning
function and keystone habits defines the
depth of data fluency in an organization.
LEADING INDICATORS
Long before a change in behavior becomes
a habit there is a predictable ebb and flow
in achieving mastery. That development
is primarily governed by reinforcement
provided by the manager of the trainee.
The quality of that reinforcement is a
product of the manager's proactive
inclusion in the learning event.

Organizations that are serious about
connecting learning to habits collect data
that measures the degree of synergy
between the primary stakeholders who
navigate that ebb and flow (trainer,
trainee and manager).

HOW LEARNERS
FEEL AFTER THEY
HAVE COMPLETED
TRAINING CAN TELL
US A LOT ABOUT
THEIR PROPENSITY TO
CHANGE BEHAVIOR.
LEARNING
It appears, the more sophisticated our
measurement capabilities have become,
the greater the tendency to discount the
impact of feedback. We would caution
against that. How learners feel after they
have completed training can tell us a lot
about their propensity to change behavior
and develop new habits moving forward.
It will never be as straightforward as a
baseball crashing through a windshield,
but if learners feel good about the learning
event and are connected to a stream of
ongoing reinforcement intended to build
keystone habits, the learning function
will have the highest probability of
ongoing success.
Marshall Goldsmith is the world authority
in helping successful leaders get even
better. Sam Shriver is the executive vice
president at The Center for Leadership
Studies. Email Marshall and Sam.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE -DATA FLUENCY IN LEARNI NG 2 02 0 I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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Training Industry Magazine - July/August 2020

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