Doing More By Doing Less

Sandra, Director of Talent Development at XYZ Company, waited anxiously for her presentation to the management team and scanned her department's performance metrics one last time.  She was proud of what her team had accomplished last year.  Course attendance was up 15%, student satisfaction with the courses was high, and she had more requests for new training pending than ever before.  They had added 20 new courses to the course catalog and had started implementing an e-learning program.  All this with no increase in staff.  "How could they not love what her team had accomplished?" she wondered.

Her presentation went flawlessly as she went through her expertly prepared powerpoint presentation.  When she finished, she waited anxiously for feedback.  Jill, the Chief Learning Officer and her boss, took the lead.  "Sandra, despite the numbers you have showed us we have decided to outsource everything your department does.  A leading consulting company has made us an attractive offer to deliver all these services at 70% of the cost.  Thus, we should be able to save at least $1 million a year.  You will be retained to manage the contract but everyone else on your team will have to find new positions.  We're sorry but we just have to be as efficient as we can be."  Sandra sat down stunned and wondered what she had done wrong.

Decisions like this are being made every day in the talent development business.  What Sandra doesn't realize is that she had fallen victim to "The Great Activity Seduction" by thinking that the more she and her team did, the more they would be valued.  The busier they were the more important they felt.  Everyone was working as hard as they could but felt good because they were delivering so many services.

The problem with her approach is that there will always be someone who will conduct the same activities at a cheaper price. More fundamentally her team was not focusing on PERFORMANCE RESULTS.  She had no measures of the impact her team was having on employee performance and business results.  Thus, management's only choice to increase ROI was to cut costs because they had no data on outcomes.

I am firmly convinced that most training organizations would be far better off doing about half as many activities and spend more time making those activities have a real impact on performance.  Management would be far happier hearing about increased ROI due to performance improvement than how many "butts you put in seats."

So start today to increase your focus on RESULTS.  Take a hard look at every activity you are doing and start eliminating those that aren't leading to real performance results.  You will end up in a better place.