If your last program’s case study uses the word “caused,” somebody is being generous with the truth.
Evidence before applause. That’s a harder standard than most leadership programs are held to — and it’s the one that actually protects your credibility with the board, the CFO, and your own team.
Never claim causation when the evidence only shows contribution.
Why this distinction actually matters
A leadership program runs for three months. Sales go up 15% in the same period. It’s tempting — and easy — to write the case study as: “Our leadership program drove a 15% sales increase.” That sentence sounds great in a slide deck. It is very likely false.
Sales move because of pricing changes, seasonality, a competitor’s stumble, a new product, a market shift, staffing changes, or a dozen other things happening at the same time as your training. A program can genuinely contribute to a result without being the reason the result happened. Confusing the two isn’t just bad statistics — it’s a habit that eventually gets caught, usually by the one executive in the room who actually reads the fine print.
What contribution language actually sounds like
The honest version isn’t weaker. It’s more credible, precisely because it survives scrutiny:
- “Sales grew 15% in the same period managers applied the new coaching practice. Other factors — a pricing change and a strong seasonal quarter — likely contributed as well.”
- “Complaint rates dropped after the program, alongside a new escalation process introduced the same month. Both changes probably played a role.”
- “We can’t isolate the program’s exact share of the result, but manager adoption of the target practice was high, and the business indicator moved in the right direction.”
Notice what these sentences do. They still make the case for the program. They just don’t oversell it — and a sharp buyer respects that far more than a suspiciously clean number.
Three questions that keep a report honest
Before writing “our program caused X,” ask:
- What else changed in the business during the same window — pricing, staffing, season, competitors, systems?
- Is there a comparison group — a team, site, or period that didn’t get the intervention — to check against?
- Would this claim survive being read out loud in front of the CFO, with no slide behind it?
If the answer to the third question is no, the claim needs to be softer, not the pitch.
Why this actually helps you sell
A buyer who has sat through years of inflated training case studies has learned to distrust every number in the deck. The moment you show them a report that says “here’s what we can prove, and here’s what we can’t,” you stand out — not because the result is smaller, but because it’s the first one they’ve seen that they can actually trust.
Enterprise buyers aren’t looking for a miracle number. They’re looking for someone who won’t waste their budget on a program that only looks good in a slide.
One honest question for your next report
If someone on your board asked you to defend the exact number in your last training case study, could you? If the honest answer is “not really,” the fix isn’t a better slide — it’s a more honest sentence.
Message Jordan if you’d like a second set of eyes on how your next program’s results should actually be reported — no pitch, just a practical look at what the evidence supports.
Further reading on jordanimutan.com:
• Why Your Leadership Training Isn’t Working (And What To Do Instead) — https://jordanimutan.com/why-your-leadership-training-is-not-working/
• Turn Capability Into Consistent Execution — https://jordanimutan.com/turn-capability-into-consistent-execution/
#LeadershipDevelopment #TrainingROI #HRLeadership #EvidenceBasedLD #ExecutiveCoaching
