ROI of Large System Interventions: Making Interventions Successful

ROI of Large System Interventions

As the world becomes data driven, most business leaders want measurable outcomes for each penny that is spent. It is only natural to have the desire to measure the output of any effort that the organisation undertakes. At the same time, it seems to be a commonly held notion that it is difficult to put a metric to an OD intervention. In fact a lot of leaders find it difficult to visualize where such interventions fit in the broader business landscape.

Measuring the ROI of OD interventions is important both for the consultant as well as the client. At the most basic level, measuring the impact of an intervention should be able to help the consultant identify any weaknesses that his practice may have and refine it further. However, more importantly having an ROI method attached to the intervention is critical for the client. Once the client and the consultant mutually agree on the ROI metrics, it creates common ground for the client and the consultant to judge the effectiveness of the intervention. Additionally, envisioning the end results that would be used to evaluate the intervention also help clarify the expectations of the client. Finally, being able to demonstrate effectiveness basis ROI helps convince the audience as well as the leadership to participate in activities that they might write of as being too fuzzy for them to participate in.

While, it is important to have  methodology and metrics to calculate ROI, it is also important to keep in mind that a cooker cutter approach would not work to judge the outcome. For an organisation undergoing change or facing inefficiencies in the current way of functioning, unlearning old ways and relearning new ones is of great importance. Hence, large system interventions are designed to enable organisations to learn. To this extent it is safe to say that the goal of any intervention would be to enable the organisation to learn. With a focus on learning the ROI metrics should also focus on learning based outcomes. Before defining the ROI metrics than, one must be clear that the end outcome of the interventions is to help the the system to learn and it is this new learning that will lead to performance enhancement.

One the guiding criteria of giving learning more importance over short term performance is clear, it is then possible to identify themes for measuring the success of an intervention. 

First, the intervention must have a clear learning goal. This may not necessarily mean a small incremental shift in behavior but rather a broad long term goal. For instance, in an organisation that is struggling with innovation, the long term learning goal would be to build a culture that welcomes innovation, rather than merely superficial changes in team behaviors such as monthly innovation meetings. These would not be successful if there is no underlying change in assumptions that foster greater psychological safety that is necessary to experiment with new things.

Second, the interventions have to be designed such that learning can be sustained over time. A number of interventions get written off as expensive gatherings with a lot of intellectual discussions but with little concrete actionable outcomes. Here the consultant must help the group discover ways of sustaining and demonstrating the behaviors that are in line with the change. Before the close of the intervention, the group must know how to transfer the learning generated in the intervention to the larger organisational context.

Third, for the learning to stick, there has to be a shift in mindset or what Senge calls Metanoia . Such a change can be effected only if the intervention is designed to build on double loop learning. That is, it enables the participants to see clearly the problem and not just come up with solutions that produce short term gains but also lead them to better understanding of the problem so that they themselves are quipped to redress similar problems. Such a change reflects deep learning.

Finally, OD is a systemic discipline and hence the interventions must be designed in a manner that the entire system is positively affected. Thus for the intervention to be effective the practitioner must be able to see the big picture and decipher all the sub-systems and then design the intervention in a manner that positive gains in one part of the system are not offset by unaddressed impediments in another part of the system.

The focus is thus three fold: to produce learning; the vision for this learning has to be systemic and long term and the learner must be empowered to see the mechanisms underlying the shift in mind so that learning is not simple a superficial change in behavior but rather it sticks.