Well, it certainly looked like he was hurting to me. He looked like he could hardly stand up, never mind play tennis. I’m referring to John Isner the American tennis player, one half of the record breaking duo (the other being France’s Nicolas Mahut) whose final set at Wimbledon yesterday went to 59-59 in games before bad light forced a break in proceedings. And it has already broken so many records – longest match ever (10 hours) most aces in a match (193) – and there are more, but I’ll stop there. All those record breaking outputs, but they will lead to only one outcome (hopefully later today) which will be one of them winning the match. And that is what will be recorded in the competition.
As a trainer, I know that I have been too interested in outputs in the past, and I now see trainers who are too focussed on them. I understand that it can be difficult to see beyond the session or course itself as we care passionately about what we do and get very involved in it. I know it’s great to come up with an inspirational methodology, a role play that explores the affective domain or a great set of PowerPoint slides. But these are all outputs. We need to focus on the outcome. By increasing our focus on the outcome, the methodology becomes more meaningful and business orientated.
When one of the players was interviewed when leaving the court yesterday evening he said, “I’ll be interested to see the stats.” Again, as trainers, we are interested in “the stats” we usually get at the conclusion of any session or course – normally provided through some sort of evaluation questionnaire. We need to move beyond this, too.
What we should really be interested in is our delegates’ (and their managers) responses to the statement, “As a result of this learning event, I have (they have) improved my (their) performance within the workplace.” Followed by, “This is evidenced by …”. If this question is posed to delegates 3 months after the event, I would expect effective delivery to achieve at least 85% agreeing with this statement. Anything less and there are potentially issues with the event, the people being nominated for it or the post-event support delegates are receiving in the workplace. That is a true outcome, one which is meaningful to the organisation and one which enables the trainer to really demonstrate their worth. It also starts the process of examining and quantifying the return on the investment for the event (ROI). Essential in the current economic climate.
How can you make your events or your trainers’ events more outcome focussed? What can managers do to ensure that their events are delivering meaningful outcomes? I’d be interested in your views – or the views of delegates.
Oh, and the title of this post? It’s an anagram of the two players’ names. Well, you have to find something to do when watching a 118 game final set of a tennis match …
Paul
Tags: evaluation, measurement, outcome, output, ROI