Book Excerpt #3

Hope you enjoy this third little teaser from my upcoming book "The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation." It will be released in the first week of June, alongside a brand new website and company launch. For now, take a moment to read and follow the event here (www.theeightlevers.com).

The Path to Relevance: Aligning with Business Performance Metrics

Let’s consider the following true story. It involved Canadians (although not this Canadian), koalas, and a lot of wool.

Back at the beginning of 2020, there were a series of devastating wildfires in Australia. Pictures of injured wildlife, particularly koala bears, tugged at the heartstrings of people around the world. Canada took up arms and, with the help of many volunteers, specifically 11,000 of them, began knitting koala mittens. So many that we sent six plane loads (thank you, Air Canada).

Long story short, koalas do not need mittens. They cannot be sterilised and do not stay on paws. Likewise, what’s the last thing you need when dealing with a natural disaster? 500kg of woolly goods to be dropped off on your doorstep. To Australia, I am very sorry on behalf of my people.

I share this story because I have seen a LOT of koala mitten knitting in L&D. All of these efforts come from a genuine desire to be helpful and contribute. Likewise, the output is always impressive and exceeds expectations. Unfortunately, they may not be fit for purpose or of quality…or should I say, “koala-ty”?

With GenAI, I know that with the barriers of speed and cost to creation reduced that a lot of feel-good initiatives will be released out in the wild simply because we could. And that’s definitely not helpful to anyone.

For L&D to truly earn its place in strategy, a fundamental shift in approach is necessary. We all already know this. This shift involves aligning L&D initiatives directly with business performance metrics. However, for many L&D professionals, identifying and working with these performance metrics can be a challenging process.

Sourcing Business Performance Metrics: Where to Look

To bridge the gap between L&D activities and business objectives, L&D professionals need to become adept at sourcing and interpreting key business information outside of their own silo of data. Here are some valuable resources for finding relevant business performance metrics:

1. Shareholder Prospectus: This document provides a wealth of information about a company's financial health, strategic direction, and key performance metrics. It is basically a document of promises to the shareholders and is the North Star for any company.

2. Project Management Office (PMO): The PMO often has insights into strategic initiatives and their associated success metrics. Pro tip: they often know which projects have funding and which ones are withering on the vine before most employees are aware.

3. Annual Reports: These documents outline the company's performance, strategic goals, and key challenges.

4. Investor Relations Websites: Publicly traded companies often publish detailed financial and strategic information for investors.

5. Internal Strategy Documents: Most organisations have internal strategy documents that outline key objectives and metrics.

Go a-hunting on SharePoint or go deep with a Custom GPT connected to a vector DB with a retrieval plugin. Prompt your favourite AI tool for instructions on how to do this.

6. Conversations with Business Leaders: Just talk to each other!

All of this may seem basic and obvious, but in my experience, it is often overlooked. This myopic view is dangerous and should be a pit easily avoided, hence why I included it as a lever. Of course, in the very near future (if not already), much of this legwork and even most performance consulting will be AI-driven and automated, with insights and recommended next steps determined by algorithms and completed by AI Agents.

It will be a fascinating world to behold.