Jay’s new book on learning metrics

New book: What Would Andrew Do? by Jay Cross & friends
How to sell senior management on the value of learning.

Preview and Table of Contents

189 pages, $19.99 hard copy or download, $14.99 read-only

Blurb: Chief Learning Officers and training directors are struggling to convince executives they are making a difference. To be successful, they must think and act like business people. This takes more than jargon and metrics. This un-book explains what a training director must do to get budget, keep her job, and make solid contributions to the bottom line. What Would Andrew Do? will challenge you to convince a hard-nosed, self-made Scot that your proposed learning project is a worthwhile use of his money. If you can do that, convincing your organization shouldn’t be a problem.

This is version 4.5 of What Would Andrew Do? It is a work in progress. It’s incomplete. Don’t buy this book unless you’re willing to put up with messiness in order to get its message.

A few quotes from the text you give you the flavor:

A manager for a major pharmaceutical firm in
Canada told his sales trainers that henceforth
their bonuses would be tied to the sales of the
people they trained. “Hold on,” they said. “We
don’t have anything to do with that.”

Andrew Carnegie is the quintessential hardnosed
businessman. Your objective will often
be to do convince Andrew what you say/do is
worthy of investment. When in doubt about
ROI, just ask yourself “What would Andrew
Carnegie do?”

Business is about making sound decisions.
Every business decision is a trade-off. (If
there’s no trade-off, it’s a no-brainer.) An
important corollary: There is no free lunch.
List the pro’s of doing something and the con’s
of doing something else. Be aware of what
you’re trading off when making a decision.
Every trade-off is a risk. That doesn’t mean
you should shy away from risk. Quite the
contrary, for no risk means no reward. A
decision-maker who disregards risk is a fool, a
pauper, or both. Fortune favors the bold. An
astute business person seeks the most
lucrative balance of risk and reward.

People see what they focus on; they don’t see
what’s really there. An alcoholic sees the
liquor stores other people breeze by. A foodie
always remembers whether or not she has
eaten at a particular restaurant. A top
executive sees long-term trends; a factory
laborer sees the clock. (Training directors see
learners; everyone else sees workers or
employees.)

Leaders have shifted their focus from static to
dynamic, from physical to virtual, from
financial results to financial expectations, from
machines to people, from goods to service
from analytical to intuitive, and from
institutions to individuals.

Knowledgeable, can-do people are the heart of
competitive advantage. Keeping them
informed and inspired is vital. More than ever,
people matter, for human ingenuity is today’s
scarce resource.

The success of a learning initiative should not
require third decimal point accuracy. You
should be able to describe the logic in an
elevator pitch. If you can’t illustrate the results
on the back of a napkin, you should probably
be looking for more productive projects.
In the words of Fritz Perls, “Learning is
discovering that something is possible.”

The false precision of ROI comes from looking
backwards. Results are counted up after the
horse is out of the barn. The past is a sunk
cost. It’s over. Decision-making involves
placing bets on the future. Decisions are most
often guided by intuition, judgment, and gut
feel than by numbers. As the investment
prospectus reminds us, “Past success is no
guarantee of future performance.”

How can you say that training caused the
result? Maybe it was a new bonus system that
went into effect at the same time. Maybe our
products were better than the competition’s.
Maybe it was sun spots. Once again, it’s a
judgment call, most likely the judgment of the
person with authority to write checks to fund
training. Or not.

Speed matters. Getting a quick solution is
more important than finding the perfect
solution. The key is to get a solution that
works. Now. Weigh the trade-off of time vs.
cost toward time by considering the cost of
lost opportunity by not acting sooner.

Pull learning is more cost-effective. It doesn’t
require as much in the way of control
mechanisms, structure, and outside
assistance. Furthermore, lessons learned
through pull are more likely to stick because
they’re relevant to perceived need, delivered
when required, and usually reinforced with
immediate application. Pull learning delivers
more bang for the buck.