Nineteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

More than ever, organizations place emphasis on and dedicate resources to evaluating the impact of training and other change initiatives. Often, evaluations to understand how initiatives changed on-the-job behaviors, impacted business metrics, and to determine return on investment. While meaningful, demonstrated changes following initiatives are the result of something more profound – a change in how individuals, groups, and the organization THINKS, yet no evaluation approach targets this aspect. I am forwarding a new evaluation strategy, which can be used in conjunction with current practices, but has the explicit purpose of assessing changes in the ways people, groups, and organizations process information following interventions, which in turn drives behaviors. Many evaluation approaches rely on evaluation “levels” to build establish direct impact; however, this approach uses five focus area “clusters” to refine evaluation data collection and analyses to isolate thinking changes. Reflection assesses individuals’ reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action efforts. Capability assesses individuals’ learning during and immediately following an initiative. Learning loops focuses on how individuals process feedback into future actions. Philosophies assesses individuals’ and groups’ views on the initiative subject. Culture assesses how the organizations’ values following an initiative. The results of such an evaluation provide insights on how the initiative influenced thinking, which is a more impactful and sustainable proposition. This strategy is drawn from the literature and practical implementations are addressed in this talk.