When Learning & Development becomes Performative

You can usually spot performative Learning & Development quite quickly.

It’s the moment a spreadsheet tells you leadership capability has improved by 14% because someone completed a 20-minute e-learning module between emails.

To be fair, most L&D leaders already know this isn’t how development really works.

The challenge is that organisations often ask them to prove learning with metrics that were never designed to measure and that’s how development can quietly drift into something a little… performative?

You start to recognise the signs. The following are all really valuable tools or approaches to truly develop people and help them achieve their potential…..but be aware when they show the signs of just being a chart on a slide….you may recognise some of these.

The Competency Framework - The Box

Leadership, judgement and influence are complicated human capabilities. Naturally we translate them into 17 measurable behaviours and a colour-coded grid! 

Somewhere in the organisation a junior manager’s “strategic thinking” has moved from 3.4 to 3.9. Which is reassuring because numbers behave extremely well in board packs.

The Personal Development Plan - The Paper Trail

A PDP should be a meaningful conversation about growth but occasionally it becomes something slightly different. It becomes documented evidence that development once occurred. 

Bob from Logistics didn’t hit his targets?

Well, he was assigned an Active Listening webinar in 2021.

The intervention existed and the box was ticked. ✅

The Gamification of Growth - The Digital Merit Badge

Someone completes “Resilience in Challenging Times” and receives a small icon of a mountain.

Digital badges appear. Leader boards move. Learning passports fill up.

It costs the organisation nothing and looks magnificent in quarterly reporting. Whether resilience has actually increased is harder to measure, however, the bar chart is extremely uplifting. ✅

The Feedback Loop - The Survey Mirage

We ran the survey and 92% of participants confirmed that the training took place, which is excellent news.

Whether it changed how anyone leads a meeting or makes a decision is a slightly more complicated survey question.

We've done the survey! ✅

The Mandatory Modular Marathon - The 47-Click Odyssey

Understanding is harder to measure but completion rates are beautifully simple.

If someone clicks “Next” 47 times in a browser window that still looks like it was designed in 2004 then the dashboard turns green.

Which from a reporting perspective is excellent! ✅

The Upskilling Synergy Workshop - The Post-It Summit

High-potential employees all in a room with several hundred Post-it notes.

There is enthusiasm. There is collaboration. There are excellent photographs for the internal newsletter. 

Behaviour change takes a little longer but we've got some photographs that are available immediately. ✅

The 70-20-10 Rule - The Accountability Escape Hatch

70% of learning happens on the job which is a really valuable and well-researched concept. 

It also has the convenient side effect that when development doesn’t quite land then the explanation is that the learner simply wasn’t “experientially engaged” enough.

Responsibility gently drifts back into the atmosphere. ✅

The Psychometric - The Personality Puppet Show

After a carefully designed assessment process we now know that Dave from Finance is a “Reflective Pathfinder". 

This is presented in a beautifully formatted 14-page report but does it help Dave have better leadership conversations with his team?

Possibly but it definitely proves that Dave has now been professionally analysed which feels productive. ✅

The Leadership Retreat - The Off-Site Enlightenment

Two days in a hotel discussing empathy, purpose and culture.

There may be a rope course. There will definitely be a flip chart.

Everyone returns to the office slightly more reflective and significantly more tired.

The experience is recorded as 10 hours of intensive leadership immersion.

The bar bill is filed under networking. ✅

The Exit Interview Extraction - The Talent Export Narrative

A high-potential employee leaves for a 30% pay rise elsewhere.

This is recorded as evidence that our development programmes are extremely effective.

After all, if competitors want our people then we must be doing something right. ✅

Here's the thing, none of this usually happens because anyone is trying to be superficial.

It happens because of how organisations measure success.

Leaders understandably want clear metrics and dashboards provide certainty.

Reporting cycles demand numbers long before learning has had time to take hold and it’s always easier to measure activity than impact.

The irony is that the most valuable development rarely shows up neatly in dashboards.

It appears later in better judgement....stronger teams and people who quietly become better and reach their potential in time.…and in a learner who realises the webinar was not, in fact, the point.

I write this not as criticism of L&D professionals, though there is a responsibility to educate and make leaders aware that the sustained application of learning can't always be shown on a short-term dashboard. The areas I've looked at above are really useful tools and approaches.

My question is - What changes might you need to make in demonstrating learning & development outcomes and the value these add to the objectives of the organisation?