Action Mapping as a Performance-Consulting Model

1. From order-taker to performance partner

Map It's core move is to swap who owns the problem. The order-taker gets "we need a course on X" and delivers a course on X. The performance consultant hears the same request as a sign that some business result is off. Their first job is to find out what people need to do differently and why they aren't doing it. Only after that does anyone decide whether training is part of the fix. Moore's point is that the action map isn't a design template. It's a diagnostic contract: goal → actions → barriers → only then activities and information. If you reverse that order, you're back to taking orders, however good the course looks.

"The main idea is to measure your value by the change in the business metric, not by how many courses you ship."

2. Strategic enrichment

Gilbert's Behavior Engineering Model (1978). Gilbert split performance factors into environment (information, resources, incentives) and individual (knowledge, capacity, motives). He argued you should work through the environmental factors first, because they're usually cheaper to fix and tend to give more leverage. Action mapping's "why aren't they doing it?" step is basically a practitioner-friendly BEM. Where Gilbert strengthens Moore: he gives you a respected, pre-digital pedigree. You aren't selling one author's opinion. You're applying a model that has held up for more than 45 years

Rummler & Brache, Improving Performance (1990). Their well-known line: put a good performer in a bad system and the system will win almost every time. Where this challenges Moore: action mapping works mostly at the job/performer level. Rummler would push you to check the process level too (handoffs, approvals, tool design) and the organization level (goals and measures that conflict). On stage, that's your upgrade. Present action mapping as the performer-level entry point into a larger systems view, not as the whole story.

Supporting evidence to have ready: Brinkerhoff's Success Case Method research repeatedly found that only a minority of trainees (often cited as around 15–20%) apply training in ways that produce concrete business results. He traced most of the failure to the work environment, not to the training event. That turns "performance consulting" from a nice idea into a way to manage risk.

3. Executive lens

How they'll push back:

• CEO: "I don't need a consultant. I need my people trained by Q4."
• CFO: "All this analysis adds cost and delay. Just build the course."
• CLO: "If L&D starts turning down requests, we lose our seat at the table."

Answer in their language:

• Cost of the wrong solution: Seat time is usually the biggest line item, bigger than development. For example, 2,000 people × 3 hours × a $60 loaded hourly rate comes to $360K of productive time spent before anyone designs a slide. A one-hour diagnostic protects that investment.
• Time-to-proficiency: Say "we'll get people performing faster," not "we'll analyze first." Removing a barrier in the environment often changes performance in weeks, not quarters.
• Risk: A course that doesn't change the behavior leaves the business risk exactly where it was, now with a completion certificate on top. Auditors and regulators increasingly look for evidence of behavior, not attendance.
• The CLO's worry, reframed: You never say no. You say "yes, and let's make sure it moves the number." That doesn't cost L&D its seat. It's how L&D becomes a strategic function.

4. Applied challenge (answer in writing)

A regional VP of Sales at a mid-size software company emails you: "Deals on our new analytics product are slipping. I need a 2-hour e-learning on product features rolled out to 400 reps in six weeks." You have a 20-minute call tomorrow.

Write: (a) the one-sentence reframe you'd open with, one that accepts the request without saying no; (b) the three questions you'd ask, in order; and (c) the single metric you'd propose as the success measure, plus how you'd get the VP to own it.

5. Keynote line

"Every training request is a symptom that someone has decided to treat. Our job is to diagnose it first. When L&D takes orders, it measures success by courses delivered. When L&D consults on performance, it measures success by what changed in the business. Only one of those earns a seat at the executive table."

6. Questions

• Name the four stages of an action map in order, and say which one most teams skip in practice.
• In one sentence, what's the difference between a business goal and a learning objective in Moore's framing, and why does it matter to a CFO?