Improvement Benefits Everyone - a tool for driving up your return on development

We use the Improvement Benefits Everyone (IBE) diagnostic to test the preparedness of Line Management ahead of investment in talent development.

 Here is how the test should be deployed.

Part 1

  • Place your recent talent development investments on the grid and review the findings.  If programmes have been in the Distraction category stop any further investment in the absence of significant change.
  • Indulgent programmes that give individual benefit but no obvious business improvement should be stopped, made more business oriented, or recognised as a reward or thank you for your personnel.
  • Programmes that yield Compliance will be of limited impact.  Individual performance in delivering against these programmes will be high initially but will decay rapidly.  Sustaining any business performance that yields low mutual benefit is too expensive psychologically to maintain.
  • Programmes that are exciting to the individual and generate an immediate business benefit in which the individual participates create high levels of Commitment—and the highest levels of sustained ROI. 
  • There is no other route to optimialy high ROI other than focussing highly motivated individual development on overcoming business performance obstacles.

Part 2

 To improve your upcoming talent investments answer do the following:

  1. Set yourself an expectation of a ten-fold return on investment within a two year period.  This is the minimum standard we set ourselves when we engage with clients. This target will force you to be clear on your measurements of success and expectations of progress.
  2. Be clear on the obstacles preventing you achieving the business goal over the next 12-36 months? This template should help.
  3. Identify the specific development gaps in your talent which, if addressed, would help overcome these obstacles.
  4. Review the curriculum of programmes identified to address the development gap. Are you convinced they are practical, relevant and beneficial?
  5. Put plans in place for the individual to demonstrate the business benefit of the developed capability within a month of returning to the organisation.
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