Misapplication of Statistical Measures

The reform petition calls for "balancing statistical and numerical measures of performance (for seminar leaders, introduction leaders, ILP participants and others) with measures of the quality of participant experience." This post is intended to illustrate the background and value for this key reform.

Currently, Landmark measures the performance of seminar leaders by statistics such as the numbers of guests, registrations, and attendance at each seminar session. Introduction leaders are measured by number of registrations. Provider programs, ILP, TMLP, course supervisor programs and so on measure "effectiveness" by guests invited and registrations. There is relatively little effort spent on directly guaging participant experience or the participant's own measure of value from a course or introduction. Landmark uses measures to drive numbers instead of using measures explicitly to optimize authenticity or participant value.

The reform movement sees that a central driver of inauthenticity and pressure in Landmark is a misalignment of incentives. People will optimize what they are measured to optimize at the expense of other measures so organizations must take care to align the incentives they provide with the end goals of the organization.

As an example of the critical role that appropriate incentives play in organizations, consider teh story of an automotive industry company that measured its managers by their ability to keep parts inventories low. The idea of using parts inventory levels as a measure was to reduce waste, to have the managers order only the optimal amount of parts needed to build and fill orders.

Some months later, a barge heading down a nearby river struck a pile of auto parts. The factory managers faced fluctuating demand that made it impossible to keep inventories near zero and still meet customer demand, so they did what it took to keep inventory low and excel in their performance measures. They dumped excess parts in the river before each measurement day.

A misapplication of incentives, intended to propel the company forward, instead created waste and loss. This is a simple story told in a graduate management course, teaching future leaders to beware about how they measure their employees and managers. Any management instructor will advise that human beings in organizations respond to the incentives they are given, even when those incentives don't line up with the goals of the organization. The message is, choose your incentives wisely.

As with the company using inventory as a measure, the measures Landmark is choosing to use today are at the source of profound losses in its effectiveness. We're no longer talking auto parts. We're talking about spreading the good stuff of transformation. The result we observe is that course leaders are overdoing the guest and invitation conversations to meet their measures. We observe that statistics are filtering their listening, impacting their stands, distorting their perceptions. Those who need to be a stand for an amazing experience for all participants are dealing with countervailing incentives that draw them away from authenticity, instead to make the case for being in their seats and bringing guests.

Harry Rosenberg, CEO of Landmark Education, wrote of surprise about participants feeling pressure, even in introductions where there were no opportunities to register. The pressure is built into a system that has its providers measuring their interaction with guests by statistics instead of by the quality of that interaction and by the quality of the experience of the participant. When the people in the room need registrations to be considered effective, the participants will feel their pressure and feel their inauthenticity. The misapplication of statistical measures drives feelings of pressure and inauthenticity in many areas of the organization. This is why reform of the way statistics are used has drawn such attention in the Reformers Yahoo group, and why it is central to reform.

A renewed Landmark will not have its leaders treat participants as statistics and will not give incentives to course leaders to do anything but provide value to participants.
We believe that there is no need to focus on numbers when one has a conversation of power. No need for pressure where people come together to do good for each other. With the right incentives and with a new spirit of openness, we will see a dramatic elevation in the atmosphere of the organization.