The subject of data brings me to the topic that I know makes many of you cringe. It’s ok. You aren’t alone, and you don’t need a mathematics background to overcome your hesitations. First, here are the most common reasons I’ve heard from L&D leaders about why they avoid measurement and evaluation.

One cognitive bias in human decision-making is the sunk-cost trap, or escalation of commitment. Over the past forty years, there has been lots of research focused on sunk costs and their effects on human behavior. The sunk-cost trap is a tendency for people to escalate commitment to a course of action in which they have made substantial prior investments of time, money, and other resources. With high sunk costs, people become overly committed, even if the results have been relatively poor. They have a hard time cutting their losses. Alternatively, they keep investing because the initial investment was so large and the situation continues to escalate. I’m sure you can think of both business and personal situations in which you have doubled down on a failing investment due to high sunk costs.

Have you heard of The 13 Keys to the Whitehouse?  If not, check it out here.  The 13 Keys model is a retrospective (historical) predictive model for determining the outcome of presidential elections.  The 13 Keys have retrospectively predicted the 1860-1980 and forecasted the 1984-2012 elections.  Predictive models work! Based on my very active and current knowledge of the political landscape, applying The 13 Keys, if the election were held today it would be a very close race... no elephant or donkey landslide!  However, the near-term outcomes of the Iran nuclear deal may very well be the tipping point sans all the other rhetoric.