Yogi Berra was Right!

Yogi Berra once said: “If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.”

I wonder if Yogi would have been as good as an L&D professional as he was a baseball player and coach.

He certainly had the right mindset — one that many of us lack in the work we do.

Imagine you’re supposed to be in Portland in a few days for a sales meeting and need to drive there with all marketing materials and product samples to demo for a new client.

You’ve done this a hundred times before, so you spring into action.

You make your hotel reservation, pack your bags, fuel up your car, put air in the tires, get on the highway, and head toward Oregon.

A few hours later, your boss calls you to check up on your progress.

You happily report that you’ve done all of the above and are on your way.

The boss is satisfied with your status update and thanks you for being on top of things.

Everyone is on the road and making good progress.

You stop for the night at a hotel and are back on the road bright and early the next morning.

If all goes well, you should arrive late in the afternoon, just in time to check in, grab some dinner with the team, prepare for tomorrow, and get a good night’s sleep.

Again, your boss calls to check in, and you provide a satisfactory update on your progress, and do the same with your colleagues a few hours later.

You arrive at your hotel earlier than expected, check in, go up to your room, unpack, and call your boss to give an update.

Your boss seems a little tense and asks if you can meet in the lobby to go over some details for the next day’s activities.

You agree and head down to the lobby ready to get down to business.

When you get there, you don’t see your boss, so you take a seat and patiently wait.

Fifteen minutes later, your boss calls to say your colleagues arrived a while ago, and everyone’s waiting for you to come to the lobby.

You chuckle, explaining that you are in the lobby, and you stand up, begin walking around, and looking for your team as you talk on the phone.

The lobby is empty.

You ask where everyone is, specifically.

The boss, slightly irritated, restates that they’re all in the lobby, but they don’t see you anywhere.

You approach the front desk to ask whether there’s another lobby.

There isn’t.

You double-check with your boss, who’s still on the phone, to confirm the name of the hotel.

Same hotel name.

You check with the front desk to ask whether there’s another branch of the hotel in a different part of the city.

There’s only one branch of this hotel chain in Portland, and you’re in it.

There must be some mistake.

Panicked, you triple-check with your boss: What hotel are they in again?

Your boss tells you, in an angry tone, that they’re in the Portland branch of the hotel — of course, in Portland, Maine.

Portland, Maine?

You’re in Portland, Oregon.

You ended up somewhere else.

And this happens all the time in the L&D profession.

We end up somewhere else because we make assumptions about what needs to be done to get “there” without defining where “there” actually is.

Managers don’t always give us all the necessary information, so you’ve got to ask specific questions and get clear answers before you spring into action.

Fleshing out business goals in advance to create a clear vision for success will help you avoid wasted time, effort, and money.

It’ll also give you the criteria for measuring your success at the end of your journey and the evidence to prove you successfully got everyone to the right destination.

Moreover, it’ll protect you from embarrassment, loss of reputation, or worse!

Remember Yogi Berra’s words of wisdom: “If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.”

Conduct the analysis.

Know where you’re going.

Otherwise, you’ll end up somewhere else.