Measurement expert Jim Irvine has experienced firsthand what it takes to make the case for leadership development. Now heading up ROI and measurement at Blanchard, Irvine shares a pivotal story.
“Earlier in my career I headed up global L&D efforts at Nissan, where we had a strong L&D team. We were running dozens of courses in 18 languages across 80 countries. We had waitlists for most of our offerings.
“Shortly after I started, leadership changed. My boss resigned and the new VP of HR came from legal. His right-hand person was an engineer. They were pragmatic and analytical—and within weeks, they froze all our budgets. A memo went out: ‘No funding unless you can prove the value of your programs to the organization.’
“I thought, ‘No problem, we have waiting lists; that should count for something.’ But when I asked my team to show me the data—on impact, on behavior change, on results—there wasn’t any. That was my wake-up call.”
