I remember staring at the goal planted squarely under my name in Workday with complete overwhelm, "Create an organized and repeatable L&D measurement strategy." We were already into Q2, time was ticking, and I was procrastinating.

I've noticed a trend in the way those of us in these areas think about measurement. I think we've got it all wrong.

We tend to see measurement as a necessary evil. We didn't go into this profession to run numbers and most of us aren't particularly good at it. But over the years demands from executives and those who hold the checkbooks started to necessitate we measure and report.