e. You don’t fit in.
L&D – and HR on the whole – often isn’t exposed as frequently to the language norms within the organization. And subsequently, don’t “pick-up” the language.
Now, lets bring that into our context. L&D often lives under the corporate HR umbrella. Which is a whole other topic all together… But, the point is, we’re often hidden in our own part of the building and separated from the rest of the business, especially “the operation.” As result, L&D – and HR on the whole – often isn’t exposed as frequently to the language norms within the organization. And subsequently, don’t “pick-up” the language.
The fall-out of this under exposure is that we don’t sound like the rest of the business when we’re presenting ideas or participating in conversations. We sound like a foreigner.
This quickly damages our credibility because we’re seen as an “outsider” or as simply not “in tune” with the organization. This creates skepticism about our ability to impact the business in a meaningful way. If we then pull-out our L&D jargon, we just compound the issue.
Switch to Lead and Lag Measures
While it certainly won’t solve the entire problem, learning the language of your business will help you fit in. When you fit in, people are more likely to listen to you. And, when they listen, you can start to influence them. Let’s take a look at a specific example – Level 3 and Level 4 Evaluations.
We don’t sound like the rest of the business when we’re presenting ideas or participating in conversations. We sound like a foreigner.
Level 3 Evaluations track changes in learner behaviours, while Level 4 Evaluations track changes in performance results. These are the measures that allow L&D to demonstrate their worth to the organization. There’s just one problem – your business leaders don’t understand them. And, it’s no good if you need to spend 30 minutes explaining them at the start of every project. So, what can we do instead?
Each organization will be different, but if you worked in manufacturing or any other heavily data driven industry – which is basically all of them now – you could switch to using “Lead” and “Lag” measures.
Lead measures are indicators predictive of future results. They are the behaviours that individuals demonstrate that are predictive of a specific outcome. For example: If an employee always calibrates their tools before commencing work, this activity would be predictive of fewer defects.
The number of defects is a lag measure. Lag measures are indicators of historical performance. They’re called lag measures because they aren’t available until after they can no longer be changed. The current “number of defects” report is unchangeable – assuming the data is accurate. We can’t go back in time and change how many defects occurred.
We can however, look at the behaviours of employees – the lead measures – and make adjustments that are predictive of fewer defects, which should improve the next “number of defects” reports.
Finding the right “lead measures” can be difficult and requires the active participation of business leaders… but, it’s a tremendously beneficial process to go through and gives you specific, clear direction on how to design your learning objectives.
Learning the Language of Your Business
Okay, so, how do you learn the language of your business? Unfortunately, there probably isn’t a course or job aid to help you out. There’s no Rosetta Stone here. So, you need to do what humans have been doing for centuries… immersion. You need to immerse yourself in your business, spending more time with the people who make your organization run and less time with your HR friends. Not that we don’t like HR, it’s just that they too are speaking the wrong language.
This means meeting with and listening to the leaders of the business, but also spending time with the front-line, the people actually doing the work. You might be thinking: “Where the heck am I going to find time to ‘immerse’ in the business just to learn the language of the business?” To which I’ll reply: “How the heck are you building training programs if 