How
Failure to
Measure
Training Outcomes Hurts Your Reputation Without You Knowing It
Fun
vs. Metrics
I was speaking at a recent gathering of government relations
professionals where we discussed the importance of not just conducting
fun, entertaining grassroots and PAC trainings, but actually measuring
the behavioral change among grassroots / PAC trainees.
I am a believer in making training fun (ask my clients), but also in
measuring behavioral change. I also believe that PAC’s and
grassroots organizations need to create crisp success metrics and
adhere to them, and I was preaching that prior to the current economic
climate which makes such metrics vital. Considering the economic
climate, you would think it’s common sense to demonstrate
ROI...you
would think.
During the workshop, I was presented with a surprising but revealing
comment. It went something like this:
“Amy,
I have to disagree with you. I think that training should really be fun
and that we can’t expect too much out of our trainees.
I’m not convinced that measuring the amount of post-training
behavioral change is the thing to do.”
Now, if I didn’t like the guy so much, I would have throttled
him on the spot. But I liked him, and he was sincere. At the risk of
him thinking that I was raised by feral cats, I didn’t
challenge him, but gently urged him to think about measuring his
grassroots advocates’ behavior, and to give it a try
sometime.
And then, in the “You can’t make this stuff
up” category, 15 minutes later he raised his hand again. At
the risk of a drawn out disagreement in front of 50 of his colleagues,
I thought to myself, “What the heck, let him throw me another
monster.” He did. He asked:
“Amy,
how can our government relations shop get more respect? How do we
demonstrate our value?”
Again, you can’t make this stuff up. Earlier he
told me that metrics weren’t necessary, just having
“fun” training events was what mattered. Can you
connect the dots?
The
Best Measure Up
Contrast that with one group that always makes the list of the most
effective lobbying groups in the nation. They hired me to conduct a
grassroots training workshop, and took me up on my suggestion to
conduct a pre-training benchmarking survey, and to follow up with their
members six months later to determine the level of behavioral
change.
After compiling the initial results, I found that, from an audience of
about 150, there were actually more
advocates who had
met with their lawmaker than had emailed, phoned or written their
lawmaker. Think
about that. Can you say that about your advocates?
Of all groups, they had the best excuse for not doing any type of
measurement, as their grassroots volunteers were already performing at
a high level. But they wanted to be
better. It was a great
reminder that there are
reasons why some groups always make the “best of”
lists besides their large membership or large
PAC.
Don’t be afraid of what you’ll find out by
collecting data on your grassroots volunteers’ activities. No
man becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
For our turn-key measurement tools, go to www.showaltergroup.com
and click on “Products.”
Copyright
2009
The
Showalter Group, Inc.
www.showaltergroup.com
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