In my experience, very few organizations actually evaluate their investments in management development. Something I find odd, given the general consensus that 'training is a waste of time an money'.Well it must be if, during times of financial difficulty it is the first cost item to be slashed!
Indeed, management development is (nearly) always a cost centre... but hang on a moment. If management development is a cost rather than an investment, why are so many people buying MBA's (quite literally in some institutions!), buying self-help books, attending management seminars?
Management development is surely an investment?
And like any investment, you can expect a return, can't you?
So why is management development not evaluated?
Here are the reasons I have heard (aka excuses) in rank order:
- Too difficult to evaluate
- Too time-consuming to evaluate
- Too costly to evaluate
- We do, we measure satisfaction at the end of the course!
- What do you mean?
This,as you may gather, is one of my pet peeves. I wrote an article about this a while back. You can find it in the Leadership Knowledge Network Learner Toolbox here.
What are your experiences with evaluation of management development?
Do you do it? If so,how and what are the results?
If not,why not?
