January 2009
Kirkpatrick’s Column
Tools for promoting accountability
Most organizations solicit some sort of customer survey information either from their efforts or from a third party. At First Indiana, we do both. This data provides an important measure for many of our balanced scorecards under the Customer Measures category. This data also provides an excellent opportunity for accountability. Unfortunately, many managers of sales areas discount this valuable source of information, usually when the measures are lower than they’d like. “I don’t believe a sample that small accurately reflects the opinions of our customers.” “We don’t believe third-party data nearly as much as we believe our own, since we know our customers so well.” “If our customers were less than satisfied, I would be first to know.” As training leaders, try to push past this resistance and persuade executives to implement some sort of accountability to customer input.
"Customer survey information provides an important measure for many of our balanced scorecards under the Customer Measures category."
Similarly, I strongly suggest you conduct regular employee surveys. We send one out electronically three times a year. We use the questions the Gallup Organization developed, the “Twelve Determinations of Employee Loyalty.” Those particular questions seem to cover all or most of the cultural ingredients we are trying to build. Results are divided by department and sent to subsequent managers. Managers then meet with their staffs to select several issues to wok on as department and decide how they will do it. This provides an excellent accountability process to work on culture and leadership weaknesses.
Many leaders keep a coaching journal. This is a tool in which the trainer or manager writes down what is going well and what isn’t in his or her coaching. It also includes the commitments that participants make to each other.
Here is a summary of the steps we use in the process to link Level 2 and Level 3 assessments to learning objectives. It is typically administered ninety days after course completion.
Learning Objective: To be able to complete the closing packet of an auto loan within thirty minutes with no errors.
Level 2 Assessment:
- Write out the steps that you would take to complete the packet.
- List and describe the six most common errors to watch out for.
Level 3 Assessment: To what degree have you been able to apply the principles and methods of completing an auto loan closing packet?
- Completely.
- To a large degree, but I still have a few problems with it.
- To a large degree, but mostly from the lack of actually doing them.
- Not too well, since I keep making mistakes.
- Not too well, since it takes me too long.
- None, since I haven’t had any opportunity to work on any.
We not only have the trainee complete a longer version of the above, but also have the supervisor do the same. This information is then used for improving training (if Level 2 scores are low) or coaching (if Level 3 scores are low).
A FINAL THOUGHT
Look for an overall trend in your organization that might indicate a general weakness in this area. This is very common, and keeps many good companies from becoming superior. If you find such a trend, talk with your senior executives about your insights, and consider developing for all managers and supervisors, complete with accountability for change.
Donald L. Kirkpatrick
From Chapter 7 of Transferring Learning to Behavior,
published in 2005 by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. |
