TAKING EASY STREET LEADS NO WHERE GOOD

Decision Makers Are You Only Measuring Safe, Easy Skills?

Most Leaders avoid measuring the impacts and human skills thinking that it’s too hard to measure and it’s not.

For the last 18 years I’ve worked with purpose led Founders and Leaders to assess and measure the Return on Skills from both an outcome and impact perspective.

If you only stick with the safe and easy skills, you’re ultimately getting half the picture in terms of what’s being achieved.

So, what’s the difference between the two?

Outcomes

Are the technical skills and knowledge that people are familiar with, they know what it looks like in their workplaces. It’s visible and clear early whether you can perform a skill it to the agreed standard or not.?

Impacts

These at first don’t seem so obvious but these are the changes in actions, behaviors, mindsets and attitudes (even language).

It’s these that makes the outcomes durable.

It’s with the impact that you’ll see relationships evolve, quality and productivity improve, and people connect positively different to their role.

To name a few.

Why measure impact ?

From my extensive experience out in the field, it’s always been the style and manner in how people show up in teams and the broader workplace that determines whether the outcomes are going to be durable.

Or not.

Who we are as people, and professionals, shapes how we work and connect to other people.

The quality of what we take out to the world.

This has been shaped by mindset, behavior, actions and words but also ultimately identity.

How we see ourselves not only as individuals but as part of a bigger organizational picture.

How Do We Begin to Measure Impacts?

To be able to introduce impacts to the mix, alongside the outcomes, you need to have a number of factors in order.

For me I always start with undertaking the following actions as part of The Circular Workplace approach.

1.????? Start with the proposed skill/ skill set.

What exactly are you planning to facilitate in terms of skills/ skill sets.

This is referred to in the accredited space as the unit of competency and it’s made up of two key areas:

Knowledge evidence

And

Performance evidence

From my experience the knowledge evidence is skills based and no surprise it’s related to assessing your understanding.

While performance evidence is based on how you can use this skills/ skill set to deliver a specific outcome or “product” as we refer to it in industry.

When you are defining what will be assessed in the performance evidence piece you are thinking about:

How the person needs to deliver the result in terms of standards and behaviors.

And this is where I am looking holistically at the Learner and what needs to happen for a personal and professional development perspective.

Where are the current gaps in mindset, behavior, actions and language and what skills/ insights do they need to fulfill these gaps?

It is very much a case of moving from the mindset of what someone knows to how they are going to leverage this.

2.???? Share the influence and decision making with the people.

To be able to measure impacts you need to be able to map it back to the role.

And that requires the feedback and opinion of the people expected to deliver on the skill set – day to day.

What do they see as the most valuable characteristics and traits of someone performing this role to the expected standard.

Note this also includes the identifiable actions, behaviors and language referred to above.

From here you are able to ensure that any skill/skill set can be mapped and ultimately assessed and measured against as part of your approach.

As part of assessment and measurement I co-design the following:

-??????? How assessment will take place and when- including the tools we will use.

?-???????The means of measurement and review in terms of key milestones. ?

?3.???? Work with people to define the end goal and work backwards.

To ensure your approach is relevant and meaningful to people I always work in consultation to define what the end result looks like.

How would they define “great” in terms of a durable impact.

This means asking respectfully curious questions like:

-??What will look and feel different about your role?

-??How will you connect differently with colleagues?

-??Is there anything you see yourself no longer doing as a result?

-??What will you need to learn/skill to acquire to be able to make this so?

Asking these questions provides a number of benefits:

1??

You identify specifically what needs to be delivered and in turn what skill/skill set must be acquired.

2??

The person names and claims the impacts to be delivered creating a sense of personal and professional ownership.

Remember when you are designing how to measure impacts as a result of skilling/ re-skilling and up-skilling make sure it follows these principles:

Principles of Assessment

The processes and resources used within assessment of skills always follows the principles of:

Fairness

Flexibility ??????

Validity

Reliability

And

Principles of evidence

All evidence collected during the assessment process is: ??????

Valid and verified

Current ?????????

Authentic ?????????

Sufficient

Measuring impact is personal but when designed and delivered right I’ve observed firsthand the positive, life changing effect it has on people.

Outcomes are important but it’s in creating the impacts where the magic happens.

Let not waste the opportunity together by only valuing the outcomes.

*Article written by @Ali Uren Kiikstart Founder and Designer of The Circular Workplace ??

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