One of the most elusive issues for today’s evaluation team is: How do you align soft skills programs to business measures? Can something as soft as empathy, communications, critical thinking or inclusiveness truly be connected to the business?
The key issue for this type of evaluation is to start with the end in mind, or ask yourself: Where do you want to finish? That end shouldn’t necessarily be a behavior, but the impact on a business measure.
It helps to visualize this, and the figure below illustrates an alignment model showing how data are aligned in a typical program. On the right side of the model are the classic levels of outcomes that are the basis of most evaluation systems as an evaluation moves from reaction to learning, application, impact and ROI. These data sets are driven by objectives (in the middle) set at those levels. These objectives are developed from the needs identified at each level (on the left side), beginning with payoff needs and moving to business needs, performance needs, learning needs and preference needs.
There are three possible steps you can take to establish the alignment and connection between programs and the business:
1. Connect to overall business measures. In some situations, there is a clear business measure, such as excessive turnover of critical talent, inadequate customer service, excessive discrimination complaints by employees, excessive unplanned absenteeism or a decline in productivity. In those cases, if the solution is aimed at driving improvement in all (or some of) those measures, they need to be clearly defined. For example, in a recent conversation we had with the talent development team at a large railroad system, the executives wanted a leadership program because there were excessive turnovers, accidents and grievances. You may need to validate the clear link to the program. It is assumed that these measures are excessive across the organization, and all the participating leaders have these specific measures.
2. Allow the participants to select the measure. Suppose a program is being implemented on inclusive leadership, and participants are asked to think about their team’s performance measures, or key performance indicators. They should identify two measures that need to be improved by the team using the planned competencies in the program. This is usually not difficult because soft skills are often powerful, flexible and versatile. If implemented correctly, they can have an impact and improve the measures that need to change. With this approach, each participant has identified two business measures (with two impact objectives) that are clearly linked to the program. This is why they are involved in the program.
3. Partner with the manager. If participants in a Crucial Conversations program are having difficulty connecting this program to a business measure, the manager may be able to help. It may require conversations about why this skill is needed and what can happen if crucial conversations are not conducted. This usually leads to productivity decreases (output), an increase in errors (quality), or it takes too long to accomplish tasks or procedures (time). Together, the manager and the participant could identify a particular impact measure in the system that will probably deteriorate if they don’t use the skill. These conversations are important because the impact measures are usually KPIs for the manager, which is a way to secure manager interest and support.
Is it the right solution?
Sometimes, making sure the program is the right solution involves a discussion, some analysis, or maybe both.
Suppose there is an excessive number of unplanned absences, turnovers of critical talent, transfers, accidents, incidents or customer complaints. If those are the problems, then some analysis may be needed to understand what is causing those problems. Essentially, this moves from a business need to a performance need, trying to find the answer to the question: What should we be doing differently in the workplace to improve the business measure (performance needs)?
The answer to this question identifies the solution and establishes a specific impact objective for the participants.
In some cases, a discussion with the program’s requestor may be appropriate, which involves a dialogue about the business need’s focus. This conversation can go down the left side of the alignment model as we try to understand what is inhibiting the impact measure. The discussion should encourage the requestor to answer the question: What should we do differently to improve that business measure?
The other approach is to go up the left side of the alignment model, starting with the proposed soft skill solution. We could then ask, do they know these particular skills? Are they using the skills now? Then, we continue to move up the left side and say that if they use this skill routinely in their work, what impact will it have in their work? What measure will change? Persistence can pay off by continually focusing on the “so what?”
Imagine if you conducted a crucial conversations workshop and reported that, as a result of the workshop, 80 percent of the team is now having crucial conversations in appropriate situations at appropriate times. A question from the executive team perspective might be: That’s great, but how did that help our organization? It is natural to ask about the impact of having these conversations. These discussions may need to involve others who know more about the situation than the requestor does.
The discussion might also involve using evaluation as a hook. On the right side of the model, ask: Where would you like to evaluate this program when it’s complete? Most requestors (if they are at the manager or executive level) will want to see the impact and might be intrigued with the ROI. Of course, to get to the ROI, you need impact because impact data is converted to money to compare with the cost of the program to yield the ROI. That request leads you quickly to an impact objective. The impact objective comes from the business need. You need to understand this business need clearly.
This discussion might be uncomfortable for some, but it follows a routine, systematic, performance consulting line of questions. In this role, you are acting as a performance consultant to help this executive (or program requestor) connect the program to the business.
Expect success
After the business need is identified (start with why) and the solution is selected, the objectives are set for the reaction, learning, application and impact levels. Objectives provide the focus needed to drive the business measures. The designers, developers, participants, managers of the participants, program owners and facilitators focus on success at the impact level. Remember, the impact is desired by the executives and it explains why you are pursuing this program. The reason for the program is not to learn or use a soft skill but to improve an impact measure that the soft skill can influence.
The rest of the story
When this step is taken, it is just a matter of measuring for impact, sorting out the effects of the program on the impact from other influences, converting this data to money, and then comparing the monetary benefits to the cost of the program. If you would like to see an example of how this can be accomplished, please reach out to us for a case study illustrating how a learning program on empathetic and inclusive leadership started with the end in mind and was designed to deliver the results.
It’s a shift in mindset, and it’s important and needed.
