In this episode of Learning for Good, I share how to find evidence that your staff training and development is working, even when you can't prove the training caused the result.
In L&D, we can get hung up on proof. We want to prove that manager development reduced turnover or that leadership training improved performance, and because we can't draw a straight line from training to organizational results, we sometimes stop looking for evidence altogether.
I think we're asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, "Can I prove this training caused that result?" we can ask, "If this learning is working, what would I expect to see?"
Key Points:
00:00 Why We Get Hung Up on Proving Training Results
03:52 Defining Learning Success With Stakeholders
06:37 Mapping the Path Backward From Success
08:26 Designing for Behavior Change
10:13 Looking for Evidence That Learning Works
How Credible Evidence Helps You Measure Learning Impact
If I hear thunder, I don’t have to see the lightning to know it happened. If leaves are moving, I don’t have to see the wind to know it’s blowing. If I drop a ball, I don’t have to see gravity to know it’s at work.
We accept evidence like this all the time. We observe what happened and use the available evidence to understand what is likely at work.
In L&D, though, we can get hung up on a different standard. We want to prove that one training caused one result. Did manager development reduce turnover? Did leadership training improve performance? Did this particular learning experience produce that organizational outcome?
Those are reasonable questions, but isolating one intervention from every other factor inside an organization can be difficult. And when we decide that only perfect causal proof counts, we risk missing useful evidence that is already telling us something important.
A more practical question is:
If this learning is working, what would I expect to see?
That question helps us look for behavior change, operational movement, manager observations, and organizational signals that can strengthen the case that learning is contributing to the result.
Define What Success Looks Like Before You Design the Learning
Finding useful evidence starts in the very first stakeholder conversation.
A stakeholder may come to you with a request because the organization is scaling, implementing a new program, or trying to solve a recurring performance problem. Before you begin designing the solution, get specific about what success should look like.
I worked with a client whose executive team felt that people managers were escalating too many issues. Senior leaders were becoming a bottleneck because managers were bringing them decisions and performance problems the executives believed could be handled closer to the work.
So what would success look like?
Managers would address issues earlier. They would handle more of the appropriate decisions at their level. Senior leaders would spend less time troubleshooting and regain capacity for strategic work.
Now we have a destination.
That destination matters for measurement because it tells us what kind of movement we should eventually expect to see. It also gives us a much stronger starting point for the learning design itself.
If you need help shaping these early conversations, 10 Questions Strategic Learning Leaders Ask is a useful companion to this episode.
Map the Behaviors That Lead to the Organizational Outcome
Once the destination is clear, work backward.
If success means senior leaders have more capacity because managers are handling the right issues at their own level, what do managers need to be able to do for that to happen?
They may need to recognize performance problems earlier. They may need to set clearer expectations, give effective feedback, coach employees through difficult situations, and know the difference between something they should own and something that genuinely needs to be escalated.
Those behaviors become the path between the learning and the organizational result.
This is an important shift because it keeps us from jumping immediately from “we have a manager problem” to “we need communication training.” Instead, we define the specific capabilities that would help the organization move from its current state toward the outcome it wants.
And because those capabilities are clear, we also know what kinds of evidence to look for later.
Design Training for Behavior Change You Can Observe
If you want to find evidence of behavior change later, design for behavior change now.
In the manager example, knowing what to do is only part of the goal. Managers have to actually handle issues differently when they return to work.
That means the learning experience should give them opportunities to practice the behaviors they will need: having difficult conversations, giving feedback, coaching, setting expectations, and making decisions about when to act and when to escalate.
They may also need job aids, scripts, reinforcement, coaching, manager support, or other tools they can use once the formal learning experience is over.
The exact solution depends on the problem and the environment around it. But when the design is aligned with the behaviors you hope to see, your measurement plan becomes more grounded. You can look for whether those behaviors are actually showing up on the job.
How to Find Evidence That Training Is Working
Once the learning is in place, look for the leaves moving.
What evidence can you find that managers are solving problems earlier and escalating fewer things?
You might ask managers directly about the situations they are handling. HR might notice a change in the number or type of questions it receives. You could compare the issues being escalated before and after the intervention. The executive team may report spending less time troubleshooting routine performance problems.
You might also notice that strategic initiatives that had been stalling are moving forward because senior leaders have more capacity.
Some of this evidence may be numerical. Some may come from interviews, observation, leader feedback, existing operational data, or patterns across multiple sources.
The goal is to gather enough credible evidence to understand whether the expected change is occurring.
For more ideas about this part of the process, see How to Measure Behavior Change and Impact from Training and 5 Levels of Training Impact.
Use Evidence to Show Learning Is a Strategic Lever
Evidence gives learning leaders something more useful than a completion rate or a satisfaction score.
It gives us a way to talk about what changed.
We can say that managers are handling more of the right problems at their own level. We can show that leaders are spending less time troubleshooting. We can point to behavior that is showing up differently, recurring problems that are happening less often, or organizational work that is moving more effectively.
That is the kind of evidence that gives weight to the idea that learning is a strategic lever for change.
Numbers are important. Measurement is important. And when you cannot measure an outcome as directly or as deeply as you would like, you can still build a thoughtful, credible case for learning impact by looking for the evidence you defined from the beginning.
Start with the destination. Map the behaviors. Design for change. Then look for movement.
The wind may be invisible, but the leaves can still tell you a lot.
To hear more about finding the evidence of learning impact, tune into episode 208 of the Learning for Good podcast.
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