At 81 years old, Robert F. (Bob) Mager is the granddaddy of modern performance analysis and instructional design techniques. Although he has retired from the profession, he is still actively learning. He is currently working on his fourth novel, and is also an award-winning ventriloquist and is taking flamenco lessons. Perhaps best known in the training and development community as one of the founders of the National Society for Performance Improvement (NSPI, now ISPI), Bob Mager has authored over 10 best-selling books, including "Preparing Instructional Objectives," "Analyzing Performance Problems," and "Goal Analysis." He was among the first to recognize that training was not always the appropriate prescription for problems in performance. Mager quickly understood that simply declaring objectives was subject to misuse and even abuse. Given that objectives have to be clear and give measurable outcomes, Mager developed a simple yet effective five-step method to analyze and clarify the often fuzzy and abstract concepts of traditional goal-setting exercises (presented herein as a sidebar). This resulted in "Goal Analysis," which describes a technique for turning fuzzy goal statements into rock-solid objectives. This became one of the central principles of his groundbreaking Criterion-Referenced Instruction methodology and workshops. In this interview, Bob Mager talks about the current state of education as well as the business of training and performance improvement. The article also lists seven books authored by Bob Mager between 1968 and 2003.