The “One Thing” for Everything

In the 1991 movie “City Slickers,” Jack Palance’s character (Curly) tells Billy Crystal’s character (Mitch) that the secret to life is one thing, just one thing.

Mitch asks, What’s the one thing?

Curly replies, That’s what you’ve gotta figure out.

The “one thing” for any learning, development, and performance solution is a particular business result, and that’s what you’ve got to figure out with your stakeholder.

For example, your stakeholder may ask you to develop and deliver a training workshop to help employees use a new software platform for creating web-based dashboards with real-time data and analytics.

At this moment, you may feel the impulse to spring into action by downloading and familiarizing yourself with the application, getting to know the target audience and their capabilities, doing a job or task analysis to put together step-by-step instructions, getting up-to-speed on the relevant data and analytics, setting up a project plan, or looking for an appealing PowerPoint theme to use during training.

You could do any of these, and you’d probably look like you’re on the right track as far as your stakeholder is concerned.

However, action without relevant information is little more than guesswork.

To avoid shooting in the dark, you need to figure out what the “one thing” is for your stakeholder to ensure the training program is on target.

Doing any of the actions listed above won’t get you there, at least not intentionally, so you’ve got to ask questions to identify the business result that not only defines the success of the program but also adds value to the organization.

Begin with a simple question, such as What does success look like for this program?

Of course, the question is a cliché, but it gets the ball rolling, and you should expect the first few answers from your stakeholder to miss the mark.

They’ll tell you, We want 75 employees using this software competently within three months.

That’s relevant information, but that’s not a business result, so you’ll have to be more specific: What business result will this enable?

They’ll reply: Managers will be able to view the data in real time, but that’s not a business result either.

You’ll rephrase the question: And what result will that enable?

To a stunned look and no reply, you’ll re-rephrase: Is there a key performance indicator (KPI) that will be impacted when managers can view real-time data and analytics?

You’ll begin to see the lights slowly come on in their eyes, so you’ll re-re-rephrase: What specific needle are we trying to move here?

In other words, you’re asking them: What’s the "one thing"?

They may tell you that the managers involved have KPIs measuring the percentage of data-driven manpower decisions they make, the time they take to approve manpower requisitions, or the cost savings related to manpower-related decisions.

You’ll continue bringing things further into focus by asking, Which of these KPIs is the most important for managers?

You can expect the response to be: All of them, but there’s usually one measure that requires or merits more attention than the others, so you’ll have to press for it.

Also, some results can be measured earlier and are reliable predictors of others.

For example, the average time to approve manpower requisitions can be measured immediately and reliably predicts manpower cost savings.

And there you have it: The “one thing” for your training program is the time managers take to approve manpower requisitions, which is a business result impacted by the real-time data and analytics provided by the dashboard created by the 75 employees who used skills in the new software platform that they learned in the workshop that you developed and delivered.

Now you have two final pieces of the "one-thing" puzzle to put into place: What’s the current measure for the time managers take to approve manpower requisitions, and what is the target measure?

Just make sure the target measure is realistic.

Note how far afield this process is from the initial impulses listed above.

The great news is that you can now be more confident that your workshop will lead to expected business results, which should be the “one thing” for every learning, development, and performance solution that you recommend, design, develop, or implement.